Wingate Voted by SAC Women’s Tennis Coaches as Preseason Favorite

ROCK HILL, S.C. – Three-time defending SAC women's tennis champion Wingate has been voted as the preseason favorite to win the 2014 title by the league's coaches, it was announced on Thursday.

Wingate – which has also won three-straight Food Lion SAC Tournament championships – earned eight of the 12 first-place votes in the preseason coaches' poll. The Bulldogs are coming off a 2013 season in which they went 19-6 overall and a perfect 9-0 in the conference.

2013 SAC runner-up Tusculum is second in the 2014 preseason poll, and received the other four first-place votes. TC finished just one game back of Wingate in the conference standings last year, going 8-1 against league foes.

Anderson is third in the poll, followed by No. 4 Newberry, No. 5 Queens, No. 6 Lincoln Memorial and No. 7 Catawba. Newberry and Catawba tied for fourth and LMU finished sixth in last year's SAC standings, while Queens' 2014 season will mark its first in the conference.

Completing the poll are Carson-Newman at No. 8, Mars Hill at No. 9, Coker at No. 10, Brevard at No. 11 and Lenoir-Rhyne at No. 12. Brevard finished eighth, Carson-Newman and Mars Hill tied for ninth and Lenoir-Rhyne was 10th in the SAC last year, while Coker joins Queens as a league newcomer.

Wingate is also the only school to place multiple student-athletes on the preseason All-SAC Singles Team. WU's Ali Evers and Becca Thomas earned selections to the team, joining Newberry's Susana Aguirre, Carson-Newman's Stefy Stand, Anderson's Avery Owens and Catawba's Liz Renteria - the 2013 SAC Co-Freshman of the Year.

Thomas and Evers also form one of the preseason All-SAC doubles tandems, along with Newberry's Aguirre and Romina Adum, and Anderson's Owens and Karen Ching.

Adum, Wingate's Morgan Winston, Mars Hill's Tatiana Dualiby, Brevard's Michelle Prata, Catawba's Sloan Kessler and Queens' Christina Rustscheff form the second-team singles lineup, while the tandems of Catawba's Kessler and Renteria, Mars Hill's Dualiby and Anna Rickenbaker, and Tusculum's Amanda Sumner and Emily Waters are the second-team doubles honorees.

2014 SAC Women's Tennis Preseason Coaches' Poll

2014 SAC Women's Tennis Preseason All-Conference Team

First Team Singles

Ali Evers, WU

Susana Aguirre, NEW

Becca Thomas, WU

Liz Renteria, CAT

Stefy Stand, C-N

Avery Owens, AU

First Team Doubles

Susana Aguirre/Romina Adum, NEW

Ali Evers/Becca Thomas, WU

Avery Owens/Karen Ching, AU

Second Team Singles

Morgan Winston, WU

Tatiana Dualiby, MHU

Michelle Prata, BC

Sloan Kessler, CAT

Christina Rustscheff, QU

Romina Adum, NEW

Second Team Doubles

Sloan Kessler/Liz Renteria, CAT

Amanda Sumner/Emily Waters, TC

Tatiana Dualiby/Anna Rickenbaker, MHU