Credit: bigsouthsports.com
CHARLOTTE, N.C. – The Big South announced the winners of the Conference Female and Male Athletes of the Year for the 2025-26 season on Tuesday afternoon with the Buccaneers’ Maeva Tahou winning the female award. The awards are voted on by the league’s Athletics Directors, Senior Woman Administrators and Athletics Communications Directors. The candidates for the annual award consist of the Players of the Year from each sport and must be deemed eligible for the honor by their respective school.
Tahou is Charleston Southern’s first recipient of the conference’s Wanda Watkins Female Athlete of the Year Award since Gabrielle Houston claimed it in 2011-12, making Tahou the second in school history to win it. Tahou received 90 points and 13 first-place votes, ahead of Winthrop volleyball player Avery Jolley, who was second with 58 points (four first-place votes). USC Upstate softball player Taliyah Thomas was third with 47 points.
Tahou earned First-Team All-America honors in both the long jump and triple jump following her performances at the NCAA Outdoor Track & Field Championships in June. She was fifth in the long jump with a Big South-record distance of 6.56m and placed sixth in the triple jump with a Big South-record leap of 13.44m.
Tahou, who was named the Most Valuable Athlete at both the Big South Indoor Track & Field Championship (40 points) and Outdoor Championship (50.5 points), capped her indoor season with four conference titles (200, 60m Hurdles, triple jump, long jump) and established the league’s overall and Championship Meet record the long jump (6.31m), in addition to recording the fourth-best all-time performance in the triple jump (13.03m).
Tahou’s outdoor season included winning the NCAA East First Round long jump, plus a total of seven medals at the Big South Outdoor Track & Field Championships with four golds (100mH, 4x400m, long jump and triple jump) and three silvers (100m, 200m, 4x100m). Her time of 13.17 seconds in the 100m Hurdles at the NCAA East First Round ranks third all-time in conference history, while her season-best time of 11.52 seconds in the 100m ranks ninth in league annals. Tahou finished with all seven of CSU’s team points at the National Outdoor Meet to tie for 35th overall -- the fourth-best team point total in Big South history and the highest by any current conference member.