Winthrop roundup: tennis teams named Big South preseason favorites
Winthrop was picked the favorite in the Big South Conference’s annual preseason polls in men’s and women’s tennis in a vote of the league’s head coaches.
In the men’s preseason ranking, the Eagles claimed the top spot for the first time since 2011.
Winthrop, which last won the Big South title in 2015, part of a league-record seven men’s tennis crowns, ranked first in the poll with three first-place votes and 54 points, just ahead of last year’s runner-up Presbyterian College, which garnered 52 points (two first-place votes).
On the women’s side, Winthrop is the preseason favorite for the 14th consecutive year.
The defending champion Eagles have won a league-record 18 women’s tennis championships, and captured the top spot in the 2017 poll with seven first-place votes and 79 points. Just behind Winthrop was last year’s co-regular-season champion and tournament runner-up Liberty, which garnered 72 points (one first-place votes).
The 2017 Big South tennis season begins this weekend with three matches scheduled for both men’s and women’s. The 2017 Big South Tennis Championship will be held at the Wake Forest Tennis Complex on the campus of Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C. The men’s event is set for April 19 to 21, while the women’s championship will be contested April 20 to 23.
Women’s track and field team 36th nationally
The Winthrop women’s track and field team is rated 36th in the nation in the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association’s preseason rankings for schools with potential national qualifiers.
The ranking is the highest preseason ranking ever received by Winthrop’s track program. The Eagle women finished 43rd in the final 2016 USTFCCCA rankings.
Winthrop’s weight throw standout and two-time Indoor All-American Marthaline Cooper returns for her senior year after finishing sixth in the 2016 NCAA Indoor Championships. She will be among the leading candidates to capture a national championship in that event in 2017.
“I am proud of our highest preseason ranking ever,” said Winthrop head coach Ben Paxton. “Obviously, when you have an athlete of Marthaline Cooper’s talent, that bodes well on the national level. We can only build from here as we go in to our Indoor and Outdoor seasons.”
Winthrop opens the spring portion of its indoor season on Jan. 20-21 when it travels to Lynchburg, VA for the Liberty Invitational. That will be the first of five straight weekend meet appearances leading up to the Big South Conference Indoor Track and Field Championships on Feb. 25-26 in Winston-Salem, NC.
Following the Liberty meet, Winthrop will participate in the Thundering Herd Invitational in Huntington, W.Va. (Jan. 27-28), the Charlie Thomas Invitational at Texas A&M in College Station, Texas (Feb. 3-4), the Chipotle Marshall Invitational in Huntington, W.Va. (Feb. 10 to 11), and the Virginia Tech Challenge in Blacksburg, Va. (Feb. 17 to 18).
This story was originally published January 11, 2017 at 3:36 PM with the headline "Winthrop roundup: tennis teams named Big South preseason favorites."