NC State baseball receiving top-10 preseason rankings
Despite losing the vast majority of its lineup and a pair of important hurlers in what was essentially a five-player pitching staff from last season’s College World Series team, NC State baseball is receiving the strong benefit of the doubt from preseason prognosticators.
D1Baseball.com is the latest to have head coach Elliott Avent’s program highly rated in its preseason college baseball poll, which was released Tuesday morning.
D1Baseball.com placed NC State at No. 10.
“No. 10 NC State, a national semifinalist last year, leads a tightly bunched pack of six ACC clubs in the rankings,” D1Baseball.com wrote. The others are No. 11 Florida State, No. 13 Notre Dame, No. 21 Georgia Tech, No. 23 Duke and No. 25 Miami.”
The Wolfpack will be challenged quickly in ACC play. It will host Notre Dame, play at FSU and then welcome the Yellow Jackets in its first three series of ACC play this season. NC State baseball will also play a three-game set at Duke in May.
Texas sits atop the D1Baseball rankings followed by Arkansas, whom NC State upset in the Super Regional last season to advance to the College World Series. CWS Finals participants Vanderbilt, who defaulted into the championship series after NC State was kicked out of Omaha by the NCAA for a COVID-19 outbreak, and Mississippi State, the defending champion, were three and four, respectively.
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D1Baseball.com is the second among the numerous college baseball polls to have NC State in the preseason top 10. Perfect Game had the Wolfpack checking in at No. 7. Vanderbilt was No. 1 in its edition followed by Texas and Stanford, whom NC State defeated during the College World Series.
Notre Dame was the top-rated ACC team for Perfect Game, checking in at No. 5.
The high ratings come just as NC State athletics announced a three-phase, $15-million renovation of Doak Field that is set to begin once the 2022 season is completed.
NC State baseball begins its season a month from Tuesday, with a three-game set against Evansville in Raleigh Feb. 18-20.
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