April 10, 2012. Appalachian State University baseball achieved its highest national ranking in program history on Monday when the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association (NCBWA) tabbed the Mountaineers 27th in its latest NCAA Division I top-30 poll.
Since joining NCAA Division I in 1972, Appalachian’s highest previous ranking had been No. 29, which it achieved twice in Collegiate Baseball Newspaper’s top-30 poll — at the conclusion of the 1984 regular season and again three weeks ago.
This week also marks the first time in program history that ASU is ranked in multiple major college baseball polls. Besides jumping three spots from No. 30 to No. 27 in this week’s NCBWA poll, Appalachian also reentered this week’s Collegiate Baseball poll at No. 30. Additionally, the Mountaineers fell just shy of entering the USA Today/ESPN coaches’ top-25 poll for the first time, coming in fourth in the “others receiving votes” grouping (29th overall), and climbed six places from No. 33 to No. 27 in this week’s Perfect Game top-50 rankings.
In rankings dedicated solely to mid-major baseball programs, Appalachian comes in at No. 4 in this week’s College Baseball Lineup mid-major top 10 and No. 7 in College Baseball Daily’s mid-major top 25.
The first-place Mountaineers are the highest-ranked Southern Conference club in any of this week’s national polls. This week’s ascent comes on the heels of ASU taking 2-of-3 games from second-place College of Charleston (22-11, 12-6 SoCon) this past weekend.
Appalachian (24-6, 9-3 SoCon) begins a challenging four-game road trip on Tuesday with a 6 p.m. contest at Gardner-Webb (17-14). Following Tuesday’s non-conference duel at GWU, the Mountaineers face another perennial SoCon power this weekend when they travel to Statesboro, Ga. for a three-game series versus Georgia Southern (18-15, 8-7 SoCon).
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