LEXINGTON, Ky. – Carson-Newman volleyball received 22 votes in the American Volleyball Coaches Association's preseason top-25 poll. The Eagles are the highest ranked team in the Southeast Region entering the 2016 season.
2015 was a banner season for the Eagles as the group earned the program's first-ever Southeast Region Championship while winning the second-most matches in school history with 29. The 29 victories were also the most in the South Atlantic Conference marking the first time since 2002 a Carson-Newman team accomplished that and the first time since 2005 that a team other than Wingate held that honor.
The team finished in the receiving votes category of the final AVCA Coaches' Poll for the first time in school history, the only team in the region to earn recognition in the poll.
The only other team in the region to be on the list are the Wingate Bulldogs.
Two of the team's five All-SAC picks are slated to return with Natalie Harris (Monroe, N.C.) and Anna Patton (Franklin, Tenn.) leading a group that will returns four starters and its libero.
Carson-Newman will be tested right of the gates playing in the Hampton Inn-Vitational in Pensacola, Fla. to begin the season against four nationally-ranked foes. The season starts with the reigning national champions and No. 2 Wheeling Jesuit. Ninth-ranked Central Missouri follows later in the day on Sept. 2. 26th-ranked Findlay and No. 23 West Florida wrap up the first weekend of action for the Eagles.
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