TAMPA, Fla.— The Mariners of Coastal Georgia won The Sun Conference 2018 Volleyball championship tournament with a road victory over No. 1 seed Webber International last November and then represented the conference in the NAIA Volleyball National Championship Opening Round. That late season success has translated into high expectations for the coming season as the Mariners have been selected by league coaches as favorites in The Sun Conference 2019 Preseason poll.
 
Coastal Georgia finished the 2018 campaign with a 22-12 overall record and a 13-5 conference mark, good for third place in The Sun behind co-champions Webber International and Southeastern.  
 
After the upset win at Webber International in the conference tournament title match, Coastal Georgia ended its season with a three-set loss at Reinhardt (Ga.) in the NAIA Opening Round, missing a chance to advance to the NAIA national tournament in Sioux City, Iowa.
 
The Mariners collected six of the nine first-place votes in the preseason balloting (coaches are not allowed to vote for their own teams) and easily stood atop the poll with 61 total points.  Defending co-champions Southeastern and Webber International were next in line, with the Fire second at 51 points and the Warriors third with 48 points. Southeastern received two first-place votes and Webber notched the remaining one. Keiser and St. Thomas rounded out the top five with 39 points each.
 
Warner (35), Florida Memorial (23), Ave Maria (20) and Johnson & Wales (8) completed the poll.
 
Coastal Georgia will be led into the 2019 campaign by junior Ashley Kot, The Sun Conference’s 2018 Setter of the Year. In addition to that honor, Kot was also a first-team All-Conference selection, a Google Cloud NAIA Academic All-District first-team honoree, and an AVCA All-Region first-team choice.  
 
”We feel very honored to have been selected as number one in the preseason poll by The Sun Conference coaches,” said Mariners’ head coach Leah Mihm. “There are incredible teams in The Sun Conference and for my fellow conference coaches to acknowledge our team in this way is exciting and very humbling. We look forward to the challenge this honor gives us and are ready to start conference play!”
 
  
2019 Sun Conference Volleyball Preseason Coaches’ Poll (first-place votes)
Coastal Georgia                          61 (6)
Southeastern                               51 (2)
Webber International                   48 (1)
Keiser                                          39
St. Thomas                                  39
Warner                                        35
Florida Memorial                         23
Ave Maria                                   20
Johnson & Wales                         8