Oregon St. Up To #2 In Baseball Polls

Sweeping Oregon and a host of upsets across the country has elevated Oregon St. to #2 in both the Baseball America and Collegiate Baseball polls this week, and up to #3 in Kendall Rogers' Perfect Game Top 25.

Virginia is the consensus #1, after taking 2 of 3 from Florida St. in the ACC showdown series of the season, and Rogers also has Louisiana-Lafayette ahead of the Beavers. The Ragin Cajuns did drop 1 Sun Belt Conference contest to Texas St., but then the Beavers dropped one on the road to WAC leading Sacramento St. as well.

Oregon St. is also #3 in this week's USA Today Assistant Sports Information Directors' poll, behind the Cavaliers and Cajuns there as well.

Being broomed out of Goss got Oregon dropped out of the Baseball America poll altogether, which seems a bit of an over-reaction, given Baseball America still has the Ducks at #15, and Rogers has them at #21.

Washington bounced back from losing the opener of the Apple Cup series to Washington St. to sweep the Cougs yesterday, and held steady at #7 on both the Baseball America and Perfect Game lists, though Collegiate Baseball did drop the Huskies from #5 down to #7.

Washington, which also had a 1-0 loss to Seattle last week, dropped from 9 to 13 in the USA Today poll, and Oregon slid from the 7 spot, but just to #14.

Cal-Poly was one of the teams the Beavers climbed over, after dropping the last 2 of 3 at Long Beach St., and dropping out of the Big West Conference lead, as the Broncos are now 1/2 game behind UC-Irvine, and slid from #2 to #4 in the Baseball America rankings, from the top down to #3 on the Collegiate Baseball list, and tumbled all the way to #9 from #3 on the Perfect Game list.

Opinions begin to vary wildly further down the lists, as WCC leading Pepperdine isn't even in the Baseball America rankings, but is #17 on the Collegiate Baseball list, and #25 according to Rogers, as well as #23 on the USA Today list.

The Waves and Broncos have a non-conference contest tomorrow that could impact regionals in the west.

The Anteaters aren't getting any respect from anyone but Baseball America, where they are #20.

And Perfect Game still has UC-Santa Barbara at #19, despite the fact that the Gauchos dropped a game to UC-Riverside, and are now in 6th place in the brutally competitive Big West.

Also, USC has snuck back into the picture, at #24 in the Collegiate Baseball poll, after sweeping UCLA.

Andy_Wooldridge@yahoo.com