INDIANAPOLIS – The GLVC released the 2019 men's soccer preseason poll Wednesday afternoon with UIndy picked to finish towards the top of the conference once again this season. After finishing 5th in the regular season last year, the Hounds reloaded with talent for their 2019 campaign and were picked to finish third by conference coaches.
 
UIndy returns their top two points scorers from a year ago in Javier and Alejandro Steinwascher. The brothers combined for 39 of the team's points last year with Alejandro leading the team with 21 points in his freshman season. While returning experience at the forward spot, the Greyhounds return plenty of experience in the back half of the field as well. Seniors Ben Rohder and Mase Koki and junior Vincent Stone will help lead the team in the middle of the field. Head coach John Higgins and staff brought in a former GLIAC goalkeeper of the year this offseason, welcoming Dimitrios Karousos from Ashland University to the program.
 
"It is always interesting to see the initial poll to see how other coaches feel about our group and our incoming players," said head coach John Higgins. "It's becoming increasingly difficult to evaluate everyone since not everyone releases their signees and current rosters tend to not come out as early too. We have been ranked higher than this multiple times in previous years or lower than this too, but it does not change our preparation for the season. I don't imagine our guys will much pay attention to the poll, read about it, or think about it because it'll all be determined when the season kicks off here soon. For us, it is great we get that kind of respect because it was another regular season where we did not finish as high as we thought we could have, but at the end of the day we still have a lot of work to do."
 
The Greyhounds open their 2019 season at home after Labor Day when they host the UIndy Invitational on September 6th and 8th. UIndy's first game will be Friday the 6th against Oakland City at 5 p.m.
 
2019 GLVC PRESEASON COACHES POLL

Rk. 1.	School (first-place votes) Bellarmine (9)	Points 210
2.	Maryville (2)	195
3.	UIndy	194
4.	Southern Indiana (5)	189
5.	Rockhurst	170
6.	Illinois Springfield	157
7.	McKendree	138
8.	Lindenwood	128
9.	Quincy	108
10.	Lewis	106
11.	Missouri-St. Louis	96
12.	Drury	77
13.	Missouri S&T	58
14.	Truman	48
15.	William Jewell	29
16.	Southwest Baptist	17