West Texas A&M claimed the top spot in the 2010 Lone Star Conference women’s soccer preseason poll released Tuesday.

   WTAMU won the LSC regular season title in 2009 after recording a 15-3-4 overall and 7-2-1 league mark. The Lady Buffs advanced to the Elite Eight for the first time in the program’s history before seeing their memorable season end in the NCAA quarterfinals.

   WTAMU collected 20 first-place votes among the 33 ballots that were cast by the league’s head coaches and sports information directors and various media representatives. The Lady Buffs totaled 370 points in the preseason poll to finish in front of its conference opponents.

   Central Oklahoma, who won the conference title last season, was right behind WTAMU with nine first-place nods and 356 points, while Midwestern State was third (288) and LSC newcomer Incarnate Word fourth (274, two first-place votes).

   Abilene Christian finished fifth with 256, followed by Texas Woman’s (239), Texas A&M-Commerce (235), Angelo State (175), Southwestern Oklahoma (121), Eastern New Mexico (93), Northeastern State (83) and East Central (81).

   The 2010 soccer season starts on the pitch in late August. Each of the 12 LSC teams will play the other once during the regular season, with the results of those contests to be used in determining the seeds for a six-team postseason conference tournament. This year’s tournament will be hosted by the No. 1 seed on Nov. 4-5-7, 2010.