Six Eagles snag SAC preseason accolades, C-N voted as favorites to win league crown

Posted: Aug 17, 2018

ROCK HILL, S.C. – The South Atlantic Conference has announced the 2018 Preseason All-Conference teams and the preseason polls which placed Carson-Newman as the early favorites to win the regular season title for the third-consecutive season.

The Eagles are on a quest to repeat as regular season champions for the fourth-straight season combining with the four conference titles in the same span. The team was tabbed as the second-ranked team nationally by the United Soccer Coaches earlier this month.

Simon Duffy's team grabbed 10 of 11 first-place votes for a total of 110 points edging Queens with 108. Wingate received one first-place vote holding the No. 3 position with 96 points. Lenoir-Rhyne (82) and Tusculum (73) round out the top-five.

Six C-N athletes cracked the two all-conference team mentions with five of the six being named first team ALL-SAC.

Holly Talbut-Smith (Crawley, England) returns as a first-team forward for the second-straight season after a 2017 campaign in which she recorded 15 of her 22 points on the season in conference contests despite an injury ridden year. She started in 21 of the 22 games she made an appearance. The senior also seized a third-team spot on the All-Southeast Region squad.

Magda Mosengo (London, England) makes the climb to first-team forward for the first time in her career after finishing 2017 with an all-SAC second-team selection. Mosengo was second in the league in total points (47) and tied for the lead in goals with 17. She added a SAC All-Tournament team selection helping the Eagles capture their third-straight title.

Mosengo finished the year on a torrent pace scoring eight goals during the five NCAA Tournament matches to become C-N's all-time leading scorer in the postseason, something she accomplished after scoring just one goal in 2016. The senior forward was also named to the NCAA D2 Women's Soccer Championship All-Tournament Team.

"It's always good to be recognized by the conference and that my hard work on the pitch is being noticed," Mosengo said. "It's preseason, you can't let that run to the head, there's still a lot of work to be done."

Alex Brandan (Knoxville, Tenn.) and Averi Williams (Powell, Tenn.) were lauded as first-team defenders after both made the jump from second-team selections last season. Brandan and Williams ended the year as regular season first-team selections.

Each player played an integral part in the team's dominant year defensively, arguably the most impressive in the team's history. Duffy's squad recorded 14 shutouts during the year, a new school record, and held teams to five shots or less 10 different times during the regular season. The team allowed just two goals during regulation through its five NCAA tournament matches which included an astonishing total 12 goals conceded through the teams 23 games.

As a junior, Brandan started all 23 games during the year, posting the third-highest minutes played on the team with 2,028. Brandan added seven assists during the year, the most in a single season in her career, two of which came during the NCAA Championship run.

Preseason All-League has arrived. @abrandan6, Mosengo, and @HeyItsAveri all jump to preseason first-team selections for the first time in their careers. @EmileeFutrell adds second-team honors following an incredible freshman season for @CNWSoccer �� pic.twitter.com/LqPtH62Lq8
— C-N Athletics (@CNathletics) August 20, 2018

"With me and Averi being seniors back there it'll really help the other newcomers," Brandan noted. "We also have Madison Huffstetler back and she played really well last year. It's our last season and we are really fortunate to be here in the first place. Last year was a great accomplishment but we just want more, we're hungry for it because we've had a taste of it."

Williams was fourth on the team in minutes played at 2,014, tallying one goal and three assists. She collected her first All-SAC selection after being named a first-team member, as well as second-team All-Southeast Region honors awarded by D2CCA and the United Soccer Coaches (USC). Williams was also named to the NCAA D2 Women's Soccer Championship All-Tournament Team.

Goalkeeper Jackie Burns (Cookstown, Northern Ireland) earns a first-team preseason all-league selection for the second-straight season joining Talbut-Smith. Burns enters her junior year with already one of the most prestigious careers in the program's history. She added a conference accolade to close out the season after being named all-SAC second-team. Burns was a huge part in the Eagles school record of recording ix straight shutouts from Oct. 7 to Oct. 31.

The Northern Ireland native started in all 23 games for Carson-Newman which included a total 11 solo shutouts on the year. Burns holds the all-time record for shutouts in a career during the D2 era with 25.3, and has still two years left to build on the resume. She is already the career leader in shutouts in women's soccer history. The netminder grabbed first-team USC All-Region honors.

Burns collected 26 saves in conference games with a goal against average of 0.51 while grabbing 5.1 shutouts against league opponents.

Another duo for @CNWSoccer collects preseason first-team all-conference honors for the second-straight year. Congratulations to Jackie Burns and @Hols_tsmith! �� pic.twitter.com/HUrmFqgwNy
— C-N Athletics (@CNathletics) August 20, 2018

Sophomore forward Emilee Futrell (Wilson, N.C.) was voted to second-team all-conference after a stellar freshman season. Futrell recorded seven points in conference games and a total of 21 points on the year which was fifth out of all athletes in the SAC.

"The environment of playing college soccer its way different than anything I've played before," Futrell commented. "I set some goals at the beginning of the year and I met all of them. It feels good to be recognized even though that's not all that matters."

"Proud of all these girls for getting the recognition they deserve from the league's coaches," Duffy mentioned. "There are some really great players in our conference so to land six players on the all-conference teams says a lot about the work our girls put in.

"We've talked about it before that we will have a target on our back heading into this season so at the end of the day, the preseason polls don't mean much to us. It's striving to get those titles come November."

2018 SAC Women's Soccer Preseason Polls

Rank	School (First Place Votes)	Points
1	Carson-Newman (10)	110
2	Queens	98
3	Wingate (1)	89
4	Lenoir-Rhyne	82
5	Tusculum	73
6	Catawba	58
7	Anderson	53
8	Lincoln Memorial	46
9	Newberry	39
10	Mars Hill	25
11	Coker	21