CONWAY, S.C. – Coastal Carolina's men’s tennis team and head coach Chris Powers have been picked to finish seventh in the 2006 Big South Conference's men's tennis pre-season poll, the league office announced today (Jan. 19).

The pre-season favorite this season is Winthrop, who garnered 15 first place votes and 127 points overall. Winthrop has been the conference champions each of the last two seasons. Radford earned the other first-place vote and had 95 points overall to finish second. The top two were followed by Birmingham-Southern (95 points), Charleston Southern (77 points), High Point (76 points), Liberty (41 points), Coastal Carolina (36 points) and UNC Asheville (34 points).

The Chanticleers return seven letterwinners to the 2006 team, including senior Brian Dowis (Yorktown, Va./York) and junior Simon Taylor (Hampshire, England/Queen's Mary College).

Coastal opens the 2006 season on Jan. 28 as it hosts The Citadel at 1 p.m.

Winthrop (15) 120 7 0 0 0 0 0 0 127

Radford (1) 8 49 18 10 4 6 0 0 95

Birmingham-Southern 0 49 12 15 8 6 0 0 90

Charleston Southern 0 0 36 20 16 3 2 0 77

High Point 0 7 30 15 20 4 0 0 76

Liberty 0 0 0 5 8 12 14 2 41

Coastal Carolina 0 0 0 0 8 15 8 5 36

UNC Asheville 0 0 0 15 0 6 4 9 34