Big South Announces 2026 Preseason Softball Poll & Honors
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (www.BigSouthSports.com) – Defending regular-season champion
Radford has been voted the favorite in the Big South Conference’s annual preseason softball poll by the league’s head coaches, it was announced today by the conference office. In addition, the coaches voted USC Upstate outfielder
Taliyah Thomas (Iron Station, N.C.) the league’s Preseason Player of the Year, and Radford hurler
Dakota Redmon (Stokesdale, N.C.) as the unanimous Preseason Pitcher of the Year. Both players also earned spots on the preseason All-Conference team, which is listed below.
The Highlanders received five of the seven first-place votes and 47 of the maximum 49 points to win the conference in 2026.
USC Upstate, the two-time defending Conference Tournament Champion, was second in the balloting with 41 points and collected a first-place vote, while
Longwood was third in the poll with 30 points and received the remaining first-place nod.
Winthrop, the Conference Tournament runner-up the past two seasons, finished fourth in the voting with 29 points.
Charleston Southern was fifth with 23 points, followed by
Gardner-Webb in the sixth position with 14 points.
Presbyterian College garnered the seventh and final spot in the preseason poll with 12 points.
Thomas is the third Spartan in four seasons to be voted Big South Preseason Player of the Year and fourth overall. She earned All-Big South First-Team honors a season ago, was an NFCA Third-Team All-Region selection, and was declared the the NCAA Division I Softball Statistical Champion for the Toughest Player to Strikeout. As a junior last season, Thomas made 52 appearances and started 51 games in right field, and batted a career-high .373 (66-177). She tallied 14 doubles, three triples, two home runs, 32 RBI, 57 runs scored, 92 total bases (.520 slugging percentage) and a .411 on-base percentage, in addition to 32-for-34 in stolen bases. Thomas had a season-high three hits on four different occasions, recorded a career-high with two doubles against Longwood on April 26, posted a personal-best five RBI vs. Charleston Southern on April 11, and finished the season with 72 putouts and a 1.000 fielding percentage. She received 11 points and three first-place votes in the Preseason Player of the Year balloting, just ahead of Radford’s
Grace Bechtol (10 points, two first-place votes) and Longwood’s
Sophia Knock (nine points, one first-place vote).
In her first season with the Highlanders in 2025, Redmon was a breakout star as she was voted Big South Pitcher of the Year, Big South Co-Freshman of the Year and Big South First-Team All-Conference. She was also named a D1Softball.com Freshman All-American, was a NFCA Top-25 Freshman of the Year finalist, and NFCA Mid-Atlantic All-Region recipient. She was the first Highlander to ever win two major end of year awards in the same season. Named the 39th best mid-major player by D1 Softball’s Top 100 mid-major player rankings, Redmon earned seven Big South weekly awards last year, the most by a Highlander in a single-season since 2008. She led Radford’s pitching staff with a 2.40 ERA, 16 wins, 19 complete games, three shutouts, two saves and 129 strikeouts in 178 innings of work. In Big South play, opponents hit just .186 against Redmon as she completed all 11 starts with a 9-2 record, 1.44 ERA and 55 strikeouts over 78 innings. She recorded a complete game victory with eight strikeouts against Middle Tennessee in her collegiate debut on Feb. 8, and earned her first shutout win on March 4 over Sacred Heart with seven strikeouts. Redmon received all six possible first-place votes and maximum 18 points in the Preseason Pitcher of the Year voting, ahead of USC Upstate’s
Maddie Drerup (nine points) and Winthrop’s
Lonna Addison (seven points and the remaining first-place vote).
The 2026 softball season begins Thursday, Feb. 5, while the first conference weekend is scheduled for March 13-15. The 2026 Big South Softball Championship is slated for May 6-9, and the five-team double-elimination postseason tournament will be hosted by USC Upstate in Spartanburg, S.C. The champion receives the Big South’s automatic bid to the NCAA Championship.
2026 BIG SOUTH SOFTBALL PRESEASON POLL
| Rk - School (first-place votes) |
Points |
| 1 - Radford (5) |
47 |
| 2 - USC Upstate (1) |
41 |
| 3 - Longwood (1) |
30 |
| 4 - Winthrop |
29 |
| 5 - Charleston Southern |
23 |
| 6 - Gardner-Webb |
14 |
| 7 - Presbyterian College |
12 |
Note: points are based on a weighted system, with first-place votes receiving 7 points, followed by 6 points for second-place, and so on.
2026 PRESEASON ALL-CONFERENCE TEAM
OF – Taliyah Thomas, Sr., USC Upstate
OF – Sophia Kardatzke, Soph., USC Upstate
OF – Tia Beckham, Jr., Winthrop
OF – Jordyn Dimond, Jr., Charleston Southern
INF – Abby Polk, Jr., USC Upstate
INF – Carson Shaw, Sr., USC Upstate
INF – Sophia Knock, Sr., Longwood
INF – Charlee Yourman, Sr., Charleston Southern
INF – Amanda Lee, Jr., Radford
C – Kelley Feigen, Jr., Radford
DP – Alli Stidham, Sr., Gardner-Webb
UTL – Grace Bechtol, Jr., Radford
P – Dakota Redmon, Soph., Radford
P – Maddie Drerup, Sr., USC Upstate
P – Maggie Chapin, Sr, Longwood
P – Morgan Cooper, Jr., Radford
PRESEASON PLAYER OF THE YEAR
Taliyah Thomas, OF, Sr., USC Upstate
PRESEASON PITCHER OF THE YEAR
Dakota Redmon, Soph., Radford