BATON ROUGE – On Monday afternoon, the three-time defending SEC Western Division champion LSU soccer program was picked to finish runner-up in the division standings in 2010 in a preseason vote of the league’s 12 head coaches announced by the SEC office.
The Tigers received four first-place votes, six second-place votes and one third-place vote for 58 points in the balloting as they seek a fourth-straight SEC Western Division championship.
If LSU hopes to win a fourth-straight division crown, it must battle the likes of the Auburn Tigers and Ole Miss Rebels for the championship. Auburn was picked as the SEC West favorite in the preseason as it narrowly edged LSU with six first-place votes and 61 points, while Ole Miss followed behind both squads in third place with a pair of first-place votes and 47 points in the balloting.
The LSU Tigers will open the 2010 regular season Sunday against South Alabama with a game scheduled for a 1 p.m. CDT kickoff at the LSU Soccer Complex.
LSU is coming off a record-setting 2009 campaign in which it captured its third-straight SEC West crown and earned an at-large berth into the NCAA Tournament for the third year in a row. In fact, the Tigers played host to the first and second rounds of the NCAA Tournament as a No. 4 national seed.
Not only that, but LSU finished in second place overall on the final SEC table for the second-straight year after setting a new school record with a 8-2-1 record and 25 points in the standings.
“Preseason polls are opportunity to promote the league during the preseason,” said LSU head coach Brian Lee. “We’ve set a really high standard for ourselves at LSU after finishing in second place in the overall SEC standings the last two years and winning the SEC West the last three years. We’re working very hard to live up to our own expectations this season and no one else.”
The four-time defending SEC champion Florida Gators are the unanimous selection to win their fifth SEC title in a row as they received 11 first-place votes to win the SEC Eastern Division and overall SEC crown for 66 points. Teams were not allowed to vote for themselves in the balloting.
SEC PREDICTED ORDER OF FINISH
SEC Champion: Florida (11), South Carolina (1)
EASTERN DIVISION
Team (First Place Votes) Points
Florida (11) 66
Georgia 51
South Carolina (1) 50
Tennessee 32
Vanderbilt 29
Kentucky 18
WESTERN DIVISION
Team (First Place Votes) Points
Auburn (6) 61
LSU (4) 58
Ole Miss (2) 47
Alabama 33
Arkansas 31
Mississippi State 16