SPARTANBURG, S.C. — Two guards from Spartanburg’s USC Upstate landed on the Big South women’s basketball preseason all-conference teams Wednesday, even as league coaches slotted the Spartans seventh in their preseason poll.
Aubrie Kierscht made the first team. Now in her third season in Spartanburg, she averaged 11.5 points over 27 games and 17 starts last winter, hit 42.6 percent of her 3-point tries and made 84.8 percent at the free-throw line. Her best night was a 26-point game against South Carolina State in February.
Grace Booth, who transferred in from Houston Christian, was named to the second team. She scored 11.4 points and grabbed 6.7 rebounds a game for the Huskies while playing guard.
In the coaches poll, USC Upstate sits one spot ahead of Presbyterian, which was picked eighth. Defending league champion High Point and Radford share the top spot, and Radford’s Georgia Simonsen was named the preseason player of the year.
The Spartans open the season Monday, Nov. 2, with a 5 p.m. game at Wake Forest.
