NCAA Division II Top 25: May 13

As the 2014 regular and conference seasons came to a close there wasn’t much movement in the overall D-II baseball rankings. The top eight teams in the rankings remained the same with Tampa, Lander and Minnesota State once again filling the first through third positions as they have since the first week of March.

The top ranked Spartans had the week off from competitive baseball as the Sunshine State Conference doesn’t have a postseason tournament. The Bearcats continued their impressive run with a sweep through the Peach Belt Tournament to captured their first tournament championship in school history and increase their winning streak to 17 games. The Mavericks failed to win the NSIC Baseball Tournament; however Matt Magers’ Mavs did suffer both their setbacks by slim 2-1 margins.

Jumps were made in the rankings by three teams who are hitting on all cylinders at the right time. Grand Valley State mauled their way through their conference championship, outscoring their opposition 45-17 in four games to win its ninth GLIAC tournament title in the last 12 tries. Alabama-Huntsville leapt from the outskirts of the rankings into the top 20 after charging through the Gulf South Conference Championships. UAH was able to avenge an earlier loss to West Florida and win two from Delta State the final two days to win the program’s second GSC Championship. The wins secured the Charger’s invite to the South Regional while ruining the Argos’ postseason hopes.

In the west, UC San Diego has been playing their best ball of the year and is headed into regional play by winning nine of their last 10 games. The Tritons outscored top-10 ranked Chico St twice and Cal Poly Pomona once to enter the rankings at the 20th position as well as capture the CCAA Championship.

Drury, Southern Arkansas, Augustana and Southern New Hampshire all also climbed up the rankings after going a collective 11-0 last week while winning their respective conference championships.

The NCAA Regionals were released Sunday night and the biggest news of the night was the absence of West Florida’s name from the South Regional listing. The Argos had solidly been a top 10 team almost the entire season and field an elite pitching staff which has the second lowest ERA in the nation. Headed into the final weekend of the regular season UWF had gone 12-1 with a win over highly ranked Columbus State. However the Argos suffered a heartbreaking loss in their series opener with Delta State and were consequently swept in three road games by the Statesmen.

UWF did have a respectable 3-2 showing in the GSC Tournament which included both a shutout and mercy rule win. Nevertheless, the committee gave the final at-large bid to Florida Southern, a team which UWF beat in a head-to-head series in Lakeland to start the season, and went 3-3 the final two weekends against unranked teams – although St. Leo is pretty dang good. As a result the Argos were dropped to 19th in the rankings, not so much because of their on-the-field performance, but because they are unable to go any farther this season.

One more shout out to the Arkansas-Monticello Boll Weevils. UAM earned its first-ever regional postseason appearance after its most successful season in school history. The Weevils reached the Great American Conference Championship Tournament title game for the second year in a row and were awarded the fifth seed in the Central Regional. Not too shabby for a team which went 0-37 just six years ago and had a 13.86 team ERA.