NORTH BOSTON, N.Y. – The Penn State Altoona men's volleyball team was voted into sixth place in the 2024 Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference preseason coaches' poll, the results of which were announced on Tuesday morning.

View the complete 2024 AMCC men's volleyball preseason poll

Penn State Behrend, which finished first in the 2023 AMCC regular season, was selected first in the poll by league coaches. Geneva College, the 2023 AMCC tournament champion, was voted second. Thiel College rounded out the top three spots.

Penn State Altoona went 5-19 overall last season, including a 5-8 record within the AMCC that put the Lions into eighth place in the regular season standings. Bob Kasun returns for his second year as the program's head coach this season.

Named as "Players to Watch" in the poll for Penn State Altoona this year were senior middle Jared Kish (Columbus, OH/Hilliard Darby) and senior outside hitter Avery Farabaugh (Ebensburg, PA/Cambria Heights).

Kish was a third-team AMCC all-conference selection last season. Among all players in the league, he ranked 13th in kills (206) and kills per set (2.29), 16th in points (236.0) and points per set (2.6), 21st in solo blocks (10), 32nd in hitting percentage (.115), 33rd in total blocks (28), 34th in digs (128), and 37th in block assists (18).

Farabaugh was also a third-team All-AMCC pick last year. In the conference, he ranked seventh in kills (230) and points (273.5), eighth in solo blocks (15), 10th in kills per set (2.64), 11th in points per set (3.1), 21st in service aces (19), 22nd in total blocks (34), 29th in blocks per set (0.39), 30th in aces per set (0.22), 32nd in digs (130), and 33rd in hitting percentage (.115) and block assists (19).

Penn State Altoona men's volleyball opens its 2024 season on the road, competing in a trio of non-conference matches hosted by Wittenberg University on Friday, January 12 and Saturday, January 13. The Lions' first match is versus Wisconsin Lutheran College that Friday at 5 p.m.