Big South Announces 2021 Preseason Volleyball Poll & Honors
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (www.BigSouthSports.com) – For the sixth consecutive season, High Point University has been chosen the favorite in the conference’s annual preseason volleyball poll by the league’s head coaches, it was announced today by the conference office. In addition, Panthers’ redshirt-junior outside hitter Madison Smith (Hilliard, Ohio) headlines the preseason All-Conference team as the Preseason Player of the Year.
High Point, under the direction of fourth-year head coach Ryan Meek, received 10 of the 11 first-place votes and 119 points to finish first in 2021. The defending Big South Champion Panthers went 17-1 in the 2021 Spring season with a perfect 16-0 conference record, and became the first team in league history to win an NCAA Tournament match when they downed UCF in five sets last April. HPU returns six starters and 16 letterwinners from the spring squad.
Campbell was second in the polling with 105 points and received the remaining first-place vote. Winthrop earned 94 points to finish third in the preseason poll, while Charleston Southern was fourth in the voting with 91 points. UNC Asheville landed in the fifth position with 64 points, just ahead of new member North Carolina A&T (63 points for sixth). USC Upstate captured the seventh spot with 59 points, ahead of eighth-place Presbyterian College (43 points). Radford was picked ninth with 39 points, followed by Gardner-Webb in 10th (25) and Hampton in the 11th and final spot (24 points).
Smith earned First-Team All-Conference honors this past spring season after totaling 172 kills across 58 sets. She averaged 2.97 kills per set, finished with 193 points (3.33 per set ratio), recorded 12 service aces, tallied 113 digs (1.95 per set), and ranked among the league leaders in kills per set and points per set. Smith was the only Panther to record 20 kills in a match in the 2021 spring campaign after hitting the mark against Winthrop on March 11, and led the team in that category five times. The 2018 Big South All-Freshman Team member picked up two Big South Player of the Week awards this past season (March 2 and March 30), the second selection after totaling 23 kills in seven sets in a two-match sweep of Campbell. Smith set a career-high for total attacks with 72 in High Point’s NCAA Tournament victory over UCF on April 14.
Smith collected 43 points for the Preseason Player of the Year honor, ahead of Charleston Southern’s Paige Reagor and teammate Gabrielle Idlebird with 34 points each. Smith, Reagor and Idlebird were joined on the preseason All-Conference team by Winthrop’s Morgan Bossler, North Carolina A&T’s Edie Brewer, UNC Asheville’s Peyton McClinton, and Campbell teammates Lailah Green and Claranne Fechter.
The 2021 Big South volleyball season begins Friday, Aug. 27, while Conference play begins Tuesday, Sept. 21. The 2021 Big South Volleyball Championship is slated for Nov. 19-21 on the campus of Campbell University in Buies Creek, N.C.
2021 BIG SOUTH PRESEASON ALL-CONFERENCE TEAM
Madison Smith, High Point, R-Jr., OH (Preseason Player of the Year)
Paige Reagor, Charleston Southern, Jr., MB
Gabrielle Idlebird, High Point, Sr., MB
Morgan Bossler, Winthrop, Sr., MB
Edie Brewer, North Carolina A&T, Gr., S/RS
Lailah Green, Campbell, Jr., OH
Peyton McClinton, UNC Asheville, Sr., OH
Claranne Fechter, Campbell, Soph., LIB
2021 BIG SOUTH PRESEASON VOLLEYBALL POLL
| Rk - School (first-place votes) |
Points |
| 1 - High Point (10) |
119 |
| 2 - Campbell (1) |
105 |
| 3 - Winthrop |
94 |
| 4 - Charleston Southern |
91 |
| 5 - UNC Asheville |
64 |
| 6 - North Carolina A&T |
63 |
| 7 - USC Upstate |
59 |
| 8 - Presbyterian College |
43 |
| 9 - Radford |
39 |
| 10 - Gardner-Webb |
25 |
| 11 - Hampton |
24 |
Note: points are based on a weighted system, with first-place votes receiving 11 points, followed by 10 points for second-place, and so on.