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Polls: ECU drops out while Tar Heels leap
in
Bonesville.net
For East Carolina, it took only two weeks to undo
almost a month's worth of poll-climbing. For North Carolina, it took
a stunning sweep of the nation's No. 1 team to vault directly into the Top
25.
After spending the first several weeks of the baseball season working their
way up the national rankings, the Pirates (14-6-1, 1-4-1 Conference USA) were dumped from
all three polls after being swept in a three-game home series by league foe
Texas Christian (12-14, 4-2).
Last week, East Carolina was 21st in the
Collegiate Baseball Newspaper Poll, 20th in
the
BaseballAmerica Rankings and 25th in the
USA Today/ESPN Coaches' Poll.
The losses to TCU piled misery on top agony for the Pirates, who have
managed but one win in their last seven games after reeling off 13 victories
against a single defeat in the season's opening weeks. In the last two
weeks, in addition to the weekend skunking by the Horned Frogs, ECU lost a
home game to Old Dominion and split a series at C-USA opponent Cincinnati
with a win, a tie and a defeat.
The Pirates will try to get their ship back on course starting today with a
4 p.m. game at ODU that begins a busy five-game week. The outing against the
Monarchs was hastily plugged into the schedule to make up for a game that
was postponed March 20 because of rain.
ECU will return home from Norfolk to host Campbell Wednesday night
before hitting the road for a three-game weekend series at C-USA member
UAB.
Tar Heels charge into rankings with sweep of Florida
State
While East Carolina was getting the heave-ho
from the polls, previously-unranked North Carolina (15-8) dramatically
grabbed the voters' attention by knocking off Florida State
back-to-back-to-back in Chapel Hill.
The weekend sweep vaulted UNC-CH to 20th in the
Collegiate Baseball Newspaper Poll, 25th in
the
USA Today/ESPN Coaches' Poll and 24th in
the
BaseballAmerica Rankings.
Before getting scalped by the Tar Heels, the
Seminoles were ranked 1st, 3rd and 1st in the three polls, respectively.
Clemson (18-1) replaced FSU at the top
of the
Collegiate Baseball Newspaper Poll and the
USA Today/ESPN Coaches' Poll and remained
No. 2 in the
BaseballAmerica Rankings.
South Carolina (21-4) advanced to 3rd , 4th and 4th, while Wake
Forest (19-4) was voted 8th, 9th and 11th in the three polls,
respectively.
 Conference USA member Houston
(18-7) made the Top Ten in all three
sets of rankings. The Cougars are No. 9 in the
Collegiate Baseball Newspaper Poll, No. 10
in the
USA Today/ESPN Coaches' Poll and No. 5 in
the
BaseballAmerica Rankings.
The new rankings were released Monday and were based on
results of games through Sunday, March 24.
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02/23/2007 11:20:57 AM
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