Beavers Back In Top 25

The Oregon St. baseball team has cracked the Baseball America Top 25 again, at #25, after going 3-1 this weekend in the Nike College Showcase, and winning 5 of their last 6 games, to improve to 11-5 for the season.

Florida (15-1) remains #1, as the Gators are undefeated since their loss to Cal-State Fullerton on opening weekend.

The Titans, by the way, are up to #15, and the only non-Pac-12 team from the west that is ranked, after taking 2 of 3 at Texas A&M last weekend, and despite a 7-4 loss at USC midweek last week.

Stanford (13-2) leads the 6 conference teams in the poll, still at #2, though they suffered their second loss of the season, a 1-0 loss to #8 Rice Sunday.

Arizona (13-2) continues to creep up, and are now #6, up one slot from last week. The 'Cats have won 8 in a row.

UCLA (12-3) jumped up from #16 to #9 after a sweep at then #9 (and now #18) Georgia. The Bruins have shaken off a slow start, and run off 10 straight wins.

Arizona St. (10-4) is benefiting from their reputation a bit, and is still at #11, unchanged from a week ago, despite a mid-week loss to Texas Tech, and taking only 2 of 3 from a 5-10 Long Beach St. team.

Oregon (12-3), previously unbeaten since losing at Hawaii on opening day, stayed at #17 despite going only 2-2 this weekend in the Nike College Showcase they co-hosted with Oregon St., with losses to unranked Illinois, and #22 Oklahoma.

The Sooners curiously remained at #22 despite the fact that they also went 2-2, losing 8-7 to UConn in Eugene on Friday as well as to Oregon St. yesterday, when the Beavers ran off 11 unanswered runs to overcome an early 7-0 Oklahoma lead.

The Huskies also beat the Beavers 6-3 Saturday night, but lost to the Ducks and Illinois.

Oregon St. heads to California this weekend to open Pac-12 play.

Andy_Wooldridge@yahoo.com