For the fourth consecutive year, High Point University has been voted the favorite in the annual Big South Conference men’s soccer preseason poll by the league’s head coaches, it was announced today by the conference office.
Radford University is picked eighth.
In addition, the coaches voted High Point’s Daniel Lugo (St. Petersburg, Fla.) the Preseason Offensive Player of the Year, HPU’s Koven Johnson (Pittsburgh, Pa.) the Preseason Midfielder of the Year, the Panthers’ Roman Holt (Tampa, Fla.) and UNC Asheville’s Lennart Granzow (Hamburg, Germany) the Preseason Co-Defensive Player of the Year, and High Point’s Josh Caron (Palm Harbor, Fla.) the Preseason Goalkeeper of the Year.
High Point, which is 37-1-7 in Big South matches since 2019 and the three-time defending regular-season champion, received all eight first-place votes cast and 64 total points in the polling to become the Big South’s first unanimous preseason favorite since 2012.
The Panthers, under the direction of eighth-year head coach Zach Haines, return six starters and 19 players from last year’s squad that was nationally-ranked and reached the Sweet Sixteen of the NCAA College Cup. HPU enters the 2026 campaign ranked No. 16 in the United Soccer Coaches’ preseason National Top 25 poll.
UNC Asheville was second in the voting with 49 points, just ahead of third-place USC Upstate (48 points). Gardner-Webb collected 39 points to finish fourth in the poll.
Longwood landed in the fifth position with 33 points, followed by Presbyterian College in sixth (26 points). Winthrop was voted seventh (19 points), while Radford finished in the final spot with 10 points.
Big South
