Defending champion High Point has been voted the Big South Conference’s preseason baseball favorite by the league’s head coaches.
In addition, the coaches voted Winthrop outfielder Koby Kropf (Clovis, Calif.) the conference’s Preseason Player of the Year and UNC Asheville hurler Colby Guy (Chester, S.C.) the league’s Preseason Pitcher of the Year.
The Panthers are the preseason favorite for the first time since 2017 and second time overall. HPU finished second in the Big South standings last season with a 17-7 record and was 35-27 overall, including an NCAA Regional victory over Vanderbilt. High Point received four first-place votes and 76 total points to win the league title in 2025.
Five teams received at least one first-place vote in the balloting for the first time since 2017. USC Upstate was second in this year’s preseason poll with 64 points (two first-place votes). Gardner-Webb finished in the third spot with 50 points (one first-place vote), just ahead of 2024 regular-season champion Presbyterian College at 47. Charleston Southern was fifth in the voting with 46 points, while Winthrop finished sixth with 43 points (one first-place vote). UNC Asheville followed in the seventh position with 37 points, Radford was eighth with 25 points (one first-place vote), and Longwood finished ninth in the voting with 17 points.
Kropf is the first Winthrop baseball player to earn Preseason Player of the Year honors since 2007 and the third time overall. Last season at USC Upstate, he earned Second-Team All-Big South honors and was a back-to-back Player of the Week honoree (April 22 and April 29).
Kropf started all 60 games for the Spartans in 2024 and became just the third player in Big South history with 20 doubles (21) and 20 home runs (20) in a season. He hit .352 overall with 20 homers, 67 runs batted in, a .704 slugging clip, 81 hits and 56 runs scored.
Kropf also drew 29 walks and five hit-by-pitch and finished with a .431 on-base percentage. Kropf recorded a career-high five hits versus Presbyterian on April 27, collected a career-high five RBI versus Queens on April 16, and recorded 25 multi-hit and 19 multi-RBI games a season ago. In Big South contests, Kropf batted .363 with eight home runs, 28 RBI, a .714 slugging average and .463 on-base clip. He received six first-place votes and 20 points in the preseason voting, ahead of Charleston Southern’s Chandler Tuupo (two first-place votes and 13 points) and High Point’s Konni Durschlag (nine points).
Guy is UNC Asheville’s first-ever Big South Preseason Pitcher of the Year honoree. An Honorable Mention All-Big South selection in 2024, Guy appeared in 14 games in his first season in Asheville, making 13 starts.
Along with a 7-4 record, he finished among the Big South leaders in ERA (sixth, 4.35), batting average against (tied-fifth, .250), innings pitched (eighth, 70.1) and strikeouts (eighth, 68).
Guy received Big South Starting Pitcher of the week honors on April 23 and went 4-3 with a 4.47 earned run average and 43 strikeouts in 44.1 innings pitched against Big South competition. He received six first-place votes and 24 points in the Preseason Pitcher of the Year voting, ahead of Winthrop’s Owen Sarna and Radford’s Drew Stanley, who tied with seven points and one first-place vote each.
The 2025 baseball season begins Friday, Feb. 14, and the first Big South conference weekend is March 14-16. The top six teams in the final conference standings will advance to the Big South Baseball Championship, which will be held May 21-24 at Truist Point in High Point, N.C. The champion receives the Big South’s automatic bid to the NCAA Championship.
Big South Conference