Two-time defending men’s soccer champion High Point University has been voted the favorite in the annual Big South Conference preseason poll by the league’s head coaches, it was announced today by the conference office.
In addition, the coaches voted Presbyterian College forward Damorney Hutchinson (St. Thomas, Jamaica) the Preseason Offensive Player of the Year, High Point midfielder Jefferson Amaya (Charlotte, N.C.) the Preseason Midfielder of the Year, Winthrop defender Diego Candia (Santiago, Chile) the Preseason Defensive Player of the Year, and UNC Asheville netminder Charlie Farrar (Wakefield, United Kingdom) the Preseason Goalkeeper of the Year. All four players also earned spots on the preseason All-Conference team, which is listed below.
High Point, which has not lost a regular-season Big South match since 2019 and is 24-0-7 in those league contests in that timeframe, was a near unanimous selection with seven of the eight first-place votes received and 62 total points to repeat as champions this fall. The Panthers, under the direction of sixth-year head coach Zach Haines, returns six starters and 15 letterwinners from last year’s championship squad that finished 10-4-5 overall last season and 6-0-1 in conference play.
UNC Asheville, the 2023 Championship Runner-up, was second in the voting with 51 points for its highest-ever preseason ranking. Gardner-Webb (48 points) was third in the balloting, while Presbyterian College collected 31 points to finish fourth in the poll. Winthrop and Longwood shared the fifth position with 30 points each, just ahead of seventh-place USC Upstate (28 points and the remaining first-place vote). Radford finished in the final spot with eight points.
The 2024 Big South men’s soccer season begins Thursday, Aug. 22, while Conference play opens Friday, Sept. 20. The top six teams in the final Big South standings will qualify for the 2024 Big South Men’s Soccer Championship, which is scheduled for Nov. 6 (First Round), Nov. 10 (Semifinals) and Nov. 16 (Championship Final), with every match to be contested at the home site of the higher seed. The champion receives the Big South’s automatic bid to the NCAA Championship.
Big South conference
