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College Baseball Rankings: Vanderbilt Keeps Top Spot, North Carolina Jumps To No. 7

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The Vanderbilt Commodores remained No. 1 in the latest Baseball America Top 25 poll, having defeated Middle Tennessee State during the middle of the week and then sweeping now-No. 24 Alabama in a three-game set over the weekend. The Commodores averaged almost 10 runs per game last week. Staff ace Sonny Gray overcame three walks and three wild pitches to finish with six innings pitched and just two unearned runs in Friday's game. Grayson Garvin followed on Saturday with 7 1/3 innings of shutout baseball, striking out seven.

Virginia, South Carolina and Florida round out the top four, but then-No. 5 Arizona State had a tough week, dropping all three games to the Oregon St. Beavers. Oregon State benefited from this, vaulting 10 spots to No. 9 this week. Also making a big leap this past week was North Carolina, from No. 16 to No. 7. They took two of three from Florida State over the weekend, dropping the Seminoles out of the top 10.

Now BA's ranking of North Carolina comes in line with the Collegiate Baseball Newspaper's and the ESPN/USA Today Coaches Poll's placement of North Carolina. In the CBN, UNC is the No. 6 team in the nation, though this ranking has Virginia still in the top spot. Oregon State also made the leap into the top 10 with the final spot there. In the Coaches Poll, North Carolina is the No. 5 team in the country, while Vanderbilt is No. 1 there.

In Mountain West rankings, the TCU Horned Frogs are still the only team from the conference ranked, unsurprisingly. At 22-10, TCU ranges from No. 11 in the CBN to No. 12 in BA to No. 14 in the Coaches poll. They defeated Texas-Pan American twice during the week and took two of three from New Mexico over the weekend. Matt Purke struck out seven on his way to the win in Saturday's game.

Arkansas was the only new team to enter the Top 25, forcing their opponent, LSU, out of the top 25. Colorado native Kevin Gausman threw eight shutout innings and struck out five in Saturday's contest. The Tigers put three on the board in the ninth to break the 0-0 tie, but a blown save and four runs later in the bottom of the inning prevented Gausman and the Tigers from picking up the win.

Here is Baseball America's Top 25:

Rk.    Team    W-L   Prev.
1 Vanderbilt    30-3 1
2 Virginia    31-3 2
3 South Carolina   26-5 3
4 Florida   26-7 4
5 Texas A&M 24-8 6
6 Texas 24-8 8
7 North Carolina 29-5 16
8 Cal State Fullerton 23-9 12
9 Oregon State 24-7 19
10 Arizona State   22-9 5
11 Florida State   23-9 7
12 TCU 22-10 15
13 Fresno State   22-5 9
14 Oklahoma 24-8 10
15 Georgia Tech   24-9 14
16 California    20-9 13
17 Stanford   15-9 11
18 Troy 25-6 20
19 Oklahoma State 24-8 23
20 Arizona 22-11 22
21 Stetson 25-7 25
22 Southern Mississippi   23-8 18
23 UCLA 16-11 24
24 Alabama    21-13 21
25 Arkansas 23-8 NR

Dropped Out: LSU, No. 17