Charleston, S.C. ? The College of Charleston baseball team is ranked 27th in the final 2010 National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association (NCBWA) Division I Poll, released June 30th.

 

The Cougars, who had five Cougars chosen in the recent Major League Baseball draft, finished the season 44-19 and with a loss to Coastal Carolina, ranked 11th, in the NCAA Myrtle Beach Regional.  The 44 wins marked the fourth time that the Cougars have tallied at least 40 wins.

 

Charleston was led by the reigning SoCon Player of the Year sophomore 3B Matt Leeds (Boca Raton, Fla./American Heritage), who had 21 home runs and 88 RBI this season. Junior CF Cole Rakar (Mt. Pleasant, S.C./Wando) topped several offensive categories for the Cougars, including batting average (.378), hits (102), runs (76), doubles (27) and stolen bases (20).

 

The National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association continued its tradition of NCAA Division I polls for the 11th year with its 2010 weekly surveys. This season's polls have been circulated from Feb. 23-June 29/30 following the NCAA World Series in Omaha, Neb. This is the final poll of the year.

 

The poll voters come from 40 college baseball writers and related media persons from throughout the nation. The final poll has representation by 10 different conferences among the 302 baseball-playing schools in the 2009 NCAA Division I ranks, and five different schools have held down the No. 1 position. There have been 16 separate leagues among the Top 30 in '10 poll, and four different schools - (chronologically) Texas, LSU, Virginia, and Arizona State - held down the No. 1 position in the NCBWA 2010 polls.

 

 

Rank School Conference Overall Record Previous Rank

1 South Carolina Southeastern 54-16 5

2 UCLA Pacific-10 51-17 4

3 TCU Mountain West 54-14 3

4 Clemson Atlantic Coast 45-25 8

5 Oklahoma Big 12 50-18 6

6 Florida State ACC 48-20 7

7 Arizona State Pac-10 52-10 1

8 Florida Southeastern 47-17 2

9 Texas Big 12 50-13 9

10 Virginia ACC 51-14 10

11 Coastal Carolina Big South 55-10 11

12 Cal State Fullerton Big West 46-18 12

13 Miami (Fla.) ACC 43-20 13

14 Arkansas SEC 43-21 14

15 Vanderbilt SEC 46-20 15

16 Georgia Tech ACC 47-15 16

17 Louisville Big East 50-14 17

18 Alabama SEC    42-25 18

19 Auburn SEC 43-21 19

20 UC Irvine Big West 39-21 20

21 Rice Conference USA 40-23 21

22 Connecticut Big East 48-16 22

23 Virginia Tech ACC 40-22 23

24 Texas A&M Big 12 43-21-1 24

25 Oregon Pac-10 40-24 25

26 North Carolina ACC 38-22 26

27 College of Charleston Southern 44-19 27

28 St. John's Big East 43-20 28

29 (tie) LSU SEC 41-22 t-29

29 (tie) Ole Miss SEC 39-24 t-29

 

Others receiving votes (listed alphabetically): Arizona (34-24), Baylor,

(36-24), Florida Atlantic (37-24), Hawai'i (35-28), Kansas State

(37-22), Minnesota (32-30), New Mexico (38-22), San Diego (37-22),

Southern Miss (36-24), Stanford (31-25), The Citadel (43-22), Washington

State (37-22).