FGCU Places 4 on Preseason Team, Voted as Favorites; A-Sun Awards & Predictions

Florida Gulf Coast took over the preseason honors and award stage in the Atlantic Sun Conference, as they placed four individuals on the seven women team and were voted on as the league favorites.

Of the nine first-place votes, FGCU received six and 75 points in total. They’ll look to get over the hump after making the Atlantic Sun Tournament Championship last season for the second year in a row but losing. The individual players give them a great chance to do so, as beyond those aforementioned four on the individual awards, they have the league’s preseason Setter of the Year in Maggie Rick. She will facilitate the offense to the other preseason honorees in Amanda Carroll and Snowy Burnam on the pin and Daniele Serrano in the middle.

Trailing the Eagles is Kennesaw State, who earned 70 points and picked up three first-place projections. They are the defending champs in the league as they made the NCAA Tournament at 21-5 (13-1 A-Sun) last season. Despite some losses, they’ll be led by Liesl Engelbrecht , who had an amazing 11 blocks in the A-Sun Semifinals last season.

Rounding out the top three is Lipscomb, who wasn’t far behind with 66 points. They’ve also had recent success in winning the conference, doing so in two of the last three seasons – although they were ousted in the conference tournament to Kennesaw State last season. They’ll be led by Carlyle Nusbaum, who has won the Atlantic Sun Player of the Year award each of the last two years and was voted the preseason honoree for the second straight time in 2018.

“I believe that the depth of our roster will add dramatically to our program this year,” Lipscomb head coach Brandon Rosenthal told VolleyMob. “At times last year we were counting on the same players and, over time, the key players wore down. Carlyle Nusbaum will highlight our roster as this past summer was the second consecutive year that she traveled with the USA College National Team.”

Rosenthal added: “If we are able to perform at a high level in pre conference portion of our schedule, I believe we can contend to be a top 35 team in the country.”

The point total after that drops a bit to a tight mix in the middle of the league, as North Florida (46 points), Liberty (45 points) and Jacksonville (44 points) show that the league could be wide open after the top three. Stetson, who comes in at seventh, also has the Atlantic Sun Preseason Defensive Player of the Year in middle blocker Hao Jin. Even NJIT, the team picked to finish last, put Adriana Nieto on the preseason all-conference team.

“The conference continues to get better and better and this year will be no exception to that,” Rosenthal said. “The ASUN will boast four new head coaches so that element brings some uncertainty but also adds to the excitement.”

The full preseason team projections and individual accolades can be seen below via the Atlantic Sun Conference:

2018 ASUN Volleyball Preseason All-Conference Team:
*Amanda Carroll, OH, Sr., FGCU

*Liesl Engelbrecht, MB, Sr., Kennesaw State

*Carlyle Nusbaum, OH, Sr., Lipscomb

Maggie Rick, S, Sr., FGCU

Snowy Burnam, OH, So., FGCU

Daniele Serrano, MB, Jr., FGCU

Adriana Nieto, L, Sr., NJIT