Conference Carolinas

HIGH POINT, N.C. - The nationally 11^th-ranked Limestone College women’s basketball team has been picked to win its fourth straight Conference Carolinas Regular Season Championship. The Saints are coming off a sweep of the Conference Carolinas Regular Season and Tournament Championships a season ago and the program’s first ever trip to the NCAA Elite Eight.

Limestone returns almost its entire roster from last year’s NCAA Southeast Regional Championship team that went 27-6 overall with a 16-2 mark in league play. The Blue and Gold became the first Conference Carolinas women’s basketball team to win the regional title.

Leading the way for the Saints this season will be a pair of First-Team All-Conference selections in seniors Celestra Warren and Ayshia McNeil along with senior forward Alicia Brookins who is the reigning Conference Carolinas Defensive Player of the Year. Sophomore guard Jasmine Kearse, the 2014 NCAA Southeast Regional Most Valuable Player, also returns for Limestone while senior guard Morgan Brown looks to become the program’s all-time career assists leader.

Belmont Abbey has been selected to finish in second in the preseason poll. The Belmont Abbey women’s basketball team is coming off of its most successful season in 10 years as they posted 22 wins, the most since the 2004-05 season. Head Coach Jason Williams was the first Belmont Abbey women's basketball coach to be named Conference Coach of the Year since 1991 and the first since the program rose to the NCAA Division II level in 1995.  A school record four players, Kelsey Long, Candace Fox, Morgan Midkiff and McKenzie Owen were named to the all-conference team.

Owen was the first Crusader to be named to the first team since the 2007-08 season. The Abbey gained a national vote in the USA Today Sports NCAA Division II Top 25 Coaches Poll and was ranked as high as sixth in the regional rankings. Belmont Abbey reached the NCAA Tournament for the first time since the 2001-02 season and won a game for the first time since the 1998-99 season, earning a 93-86 victory over Wingate.

The King University women's basketball team has been selected third in the preseason coaches' poll a season after advancing to the Conference Carolinas Tournament semifinals. The Tornado earned their first Conference Carolinas Tournament victory last year, defeating Lees-McRae College before falling to league champion, Limestone College who advanced to the NCAA Elite Eight.

Mount Olive, Barton, Erskine, Lees-McRae, North Greenville, Pfeiffer, and Converse rounded out the rest of the preseason poll respectively.

Conference Carolinas Women’s Basketball Preseason Poll

(# of First Place Votes in Parenthesis)