Charleston Southern University’s women’s track and field team finished the first day of the Big South Indoor Track & Field Championships in third place with 38 points. The competition, held in Tyron, North Carolina, saw standout performances from Zemaya Carson and Maeva Tahou, who each won individual titles.
Maeva Tahou set a new personal best, meet record, and conference record in the long jump with a leap of 6.31 meters on her fifth attempt. She surpassed six meters on two other jumps as well. The top four finishers in the event all achieved personal bests that now rank among the top six marks in league history. Katelyn Grate also competed for Charleston Southern, finishing ninth with her own career-best mark of 5.33 meters.
In the weight throw, Zemaya Carson broke her previous personal best by nearly a meter and set a new school record with a throw of 19.24 meters on her second attempt. All four of her recorded throws exceeded 18.75 meters. Her performance now ranks seventh-best in league history for the event. Lily Rowan placed fourth overall with a throw of 17.44 meters, moving up to fourth in school history.
The day’s finals also included the 5K race and distance medley relay (DMR). Giada D’Agostino ran a personal best time of 17:44.66 to finish fifth in the 5K, while Elizabeth Shaylor was eighth at 17:52.46—both times ranking among the program’s all-time top ten performances. In the DMR, Charleston Southern posted their season-best time of 11:59.06—just .01 seconds behind first place—for the fourth-fastest time in school history.
During preliminary heats, Charleston Southern advanced athletes in every event entered. In the 60-meter hurdles, Tahou (8.30), Grenisha Thomas (8.46), and Chloe Mae Wilks (8.51) recorded personal bests and had the three fastest times of the round.
Maya Clark led qualifiers in the 400-meter dash with a time of 54.57 seconds; Caroline Aslerin (56.09) and Barbara de Kock (56.89) also advanced after posting strong times.
Thomas clocked a season-best 7.55 seconds—the fastest time—in qualifying for finals in the 60-meter dash.
In both the 200-meter and 800-meter preliminaries, multiple Buccaneers advanced to finals: Freya Buglass, Lucy McNamara, and Sienna Rose moved forward in the 800m—with Rose achieving a personal best that placed her inside Charleston Southern’s all-time top ten—and Tahou, Thomas, Clark, and Aslerin qualified for finals in the 200m.
The championships will conclude tomorrow with field events starting at 12:15 p.m., followed by track events beginning at 2:10 p.m.
