Oregon St. Edges Up In Polls; So Does Oregon

Weekend home sweeps helped inch both in state programs upward in this week's baseball polls. Several teams ahead of Oregon St. suffered losses this week, and produced some shakeup and disagreement across the numerous polls, but the Beavers, who took their first ever 3 game sweep against USC, were only able to slip by Virginia, who took 2 losses in 5 games, both losses at rival Virginia Tech, in this week's Baseball America Top 25, moving up 1 place to #6.

North Carolina, who has been the consensus #1 all season, took 2 losses, doubling their loss column total for the season. One was to UNC-Wilmington, but held on to the top spot in the Baseball America poll, with the other loss coming in a split with ACC and in-state foe North Carolina St., who moved up from #6 to #5. Interestingly, the third game in the conference series, which was rained out Sunday evening, is not planned to be made up, so that both teams can be assured of avoiding what would be a loss for one of them.

Vanderbilt, who went 4-0 against ranked opponents, beating Louisville and sweeping Mississippi St., swapped places with SEC rival LSU, taking over the #2 spot while the Tigers slipped to #3 after going 2-2, losing 2 of 3 to #15 South Carolina, also from the SEC.

Fullerton St. stayed at #4, having gone only 2-1 in Hawaii, having lost a 1 run decision in the first game of the series.

Oregon, who also beat Portland before sweeping visiting Stanford, climbed from #13 to #11.

Arizona St., who beat UNLV and then swept their weekend series at Utah, remained #8.

UCLA, however, went only 2-2, getting routed 11-1 by Long Beach St., and then losing the final game of their series in Pullman, but stayed at #9. Only 2 other teams in the top 20 have as many losses as the Bruins.

The only other ranked western team is New Mexico. The Lobos jumped all the way from #24 up to #17, and are quietly edging closer to possibly hosting an NCAA Regional, after sweeping UNLV.

The Collegiate Baseball Top 25 takes a considerably different view, putting Vandy at #1. They have Oregon St. at #5, and Oregon #6, with UCLA down 5 spots to #12, and Arizona St. at #13. They also still have Stanford ranked, at #22, and Arizona, who swept a non-conference series against Alabama St., at #23.

Perfect Game paid little attention to what was going on, leaving North Carolina at #1, Oregon St. at #7, Arizona St. at #8, and Oregon at #13, all right where they were a week ago in their poll. They did drop UCLA from #9 to #10.

The USA Today Coaches' Assistant Sports Information Directors poll also left North Carolina at the top, but also moved Vanderbilt to #2, and elevated Oregon St. from #6 to #5. That allowed them to move Oregon from #7 to #6. The Assistant SIDs dropped UCLA from #8 to #11, and interestingly, still have Arizona St. down at #16.

The National Collegiate Baseball Writers' Assn. also ranked the Beavers #5 this week.

Andy_Wooldridge@yahoo.com