West Virginia Moves Up in a Pair of National Rankings
The West Virginia University baseball program went a perfect 5-0 last week, notching midweek wins at Ohio State, returned home to mercy rule Pitt, and completed a clean sweep over Big 12 Conference foe Utah.
After a phenomenal week, the Mountaineers moved up in a pair of rankings, sliding up two spots in the USA TODAY Sports to 23rd, three places to 20th in the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Associate (NCBWA) Poll, and remained steady at No. 11 in Perfect Game. Meanwhile, WVU remains unranked in the Baseball America Poll and D1Baseball.com has yet to rank a hot West Virginia team.
As of Monday, West Virginia was 30th in the RPI.
The Mountaineers are currently ranked 11th in the country with a Big 12 leading team ERA of 3.72 and 16th in team batting average at .320.
West Virginia junior Skylar King is batting a team-leading .365, which sits just outside the top 10 of the Big 12, while ranking fourth in the conference in stolen bases (12) and sacrifice bunts (4).
Senior Jace Rinehart is second on the team in batting average, hitting .354. His 12 doubles are third in the league and is tenth in slugging percentage (.667) and RBI (33).
Senior Kyle West (4th, .505) and junior Logan Sauve (7th, .475) are in the top 10 in on base percentage.
West Virginia is back in action this weekend as the Mountaineers travel to Texas to take on the Houston Cougars for a three-game. Game 1 is set for Friday at 7:30 p.m. EST, game 2 is slated for Saturday at 7:30 p.m. EST and the series final is scheduled for Sunday at 12:30 p.m. EST.
West Virginia in the National Rankings
D1Baseball: NR
USA TODAY Sports: 23
NCBWA: 20
Baseball America: NR
Perfect Game: 11
