College Top 25: May 18

UC Irvine remains No. 1 for fifth straight week

Staff Report
May 18, 2009

UC Irvine continued its run atop the Baseball America Top 25 rankings, as the Anteaters swept UC Davis over the weekend, clinching the Big West title outright and earning the No. 1 ranking for the fifth straight week.

UC Irvine, Louisiana State and Arizona State, the top three teams in the rankings, all stayed put after having winning weeks, but there was plenty of movement toward the back of the top 10. Oklahoma made the biggest jump, moving up seven spots to No. 8 after sweeping then-No. 16 Texas A&M over the weekend. The Sooners are followed by Florida and Texas Christian, which reached the top 10 after knocking off Kentucky and Nevada-Las Vegas, respectively.

East Carolina won its first Conference USA regular-season title since 2004 thanks to a sweep of Memphis over the weekend coupled with Rice's series loss to Alabama-Birmingham. The Pirates jumped up five spots in the rankings, reaching the No. 15 spot. Meanwhile, Florida State swept Grambling State over the weekend and moved up to No. 12, but the bigger news for the Seminoles was their clinching the ACC regular-season crown thanks to losses by North Carolina and Georgia Tech.

South Carolina was the only new team to join the rankings this week. The Gamecocks have been hot down the stretch, winning five of their last six weekend series. They earned a No. 25 ranking thanks to a weekend sweep of Georgia.

The staff of Baseball America determines the Top 25 rankings. Records indicated are through games of May 17 and do not include ties.

Rk.	Team	W-L	Last Week	Prev.
1.	UC Irvine	40-12	3-1	1
2.	Louisiana State	41-15	3-1	2
3.	Arizona State	41-11	3-0	3
4.	Cal State Fullerton	38-14	2-1	5
5.	Texas	38-12	2-0	6
6.	North Carolina	41-14	3-1	8
7.	Mississippi	40-15	3-0	9
8.	Oklahoma	40-16	3-0	15
9.	Florida	38-18	3-1	13
10.	Texas Christian	35-14	4-0	14
11.	Rice	35-15	2-2	4
12.	Florida State	40-14	4-0	17
13.	Clemson	39-17	5-0	19
14.	Georgia Tech	34-15	1-3	7
15.	East Carolina	41-15	4-0	20
16.	Virginia	39-12	2-2	10
17.	Kansas State	39-15	1-2	11
18.	Alabama	37-17	2-2	12
19.	Cal Poly	35-17	2-2	18
20.	Louisville	40-14	4-0	23
21.	Minnesota	35-15	2-1	21
22.	Elon	37-14	1-0	22
23.	Miami	35-18	3-0	24
24.	Missouri	32-23	2-0	25
25.	South Carolina	37-19	5-0	NR
Dropped Out: Texas A&M (16)