Beaver Baseball: Ranked 19th in coaches poll
CORVALLIS, Ore. – The Oregon State baseball team is ranked 19th in the initial USA Today/ESPN Preseason Top 25 Coaches Poll which was released on Thursday.
The Beavers are one of five teams from the Pac-12 Conference in the poll and it is OSU’s second ranking of the week after Baseball America placed the club 23rd on Tuesday. Oregon State is also 24th in Collegiate Baseball’s rankings, released in December.
Florida is No. 1, followed by No. 2 South Carolina, No. 3 Stanford, No. 4 North Carolina and No. 5 Texas. Other Pac-12 schools ranked are No. 18 UCLA, No. 20 Arizona and No. 22 California.
Oregon State garnered 214 points, just three behind No. 18 UCLA and four behind No. 17 Virginia.
The ranking comes a day prior to the Beavers’ first practice of the 2012 season – three weeks in advance of the season opener – on Friday, which is the first day allowable by the NCAA.
Oregon State head coach Pat Casey spoke with the media on Thursday, and as always, is excited to get the season started. Friday’s practice is one of a number of steps leading up to the first game.
“I’m excited about it,” he said. “It’s just like it always is. We have a lot of young players but we certainly feel like that is the norm for everybody. We had a really solid run last year for a club that was picked to finish eighth (before the season). I don’t think we finished our business and that was disappointing to all of us. It’s now time to see how this club will do as we get closer to the start of the season.”
Season tickets for the 2012 season are currently on sale.
Season tickets cost $400 and are good for the entire home schedule during the regular season, which includes 23 home dates and 24 games. OSU non-conference opponents at Goss Stadium this season include NCAA Tournament clubs Oklahoma, Illinois and Connecticut while Pac-12 opponents slated to come to Corvallis are Oregon, Washington, Arizona, Stanford and UCLA.
Individual game tickets will be made available to the public starting Jan. 30.
Tickets can be purchased by calling 1-800-GOBEAVS, in person at the Gill Coliseum ticket office or online at osubeavers.com.
Oregon State opens the 2012 season Feb. 17 when starting a four-game series at UC Santa Barbara.
Click on the links below to hear from the Beavers media day.
