Baseball: WVU Picked Seventh in Big East Poll
January 16, 2009 03:40 PM | General
By Steve Stone for MSNsportsNET.com
January 16, 2009
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - The West Virginia University baseball team has been picked to finish seventh in the annual Preseason Big East Coaches Poll, announced today by the Big East Office.
The poll is conducted by the conference’s 12 head coaches, who are not permitted to vote for their respective squads.
The Mountaineers went 35-21 in 2008, including a 13-14 conference record. They finished seventh in the conference and fell one game shy of reaching the quarterfinals of the Big East Championship despite starting the season as the 10th-place pick in the 2008 Preseason Big East Coaches Poll.
WVU returns four All-Big East performers from last season who helped guide the team to a .341 batting average, good for fifth best in the country. The Mountaineers also bring back centerfielder Austin Markel, who became a Big East All-Tournament Team member in 2008 after going 5-for-12 with a home run, six RBIs and three doubles in WVU’s three-game postseason span against Cincinnati, Notre Dame and USF.
Shortstop Jedd Gyorko, a sophomore from Morgantown, was named to the Preseason All-Big East Team. The reigning Big East Rookie of the Year batted .409 with eight home runs and 63 RBIs en route to earning several postseason accolades last season.
Gyorko, along with utility player Justin Parks, has also been named to the Brooks Wallace National Player of the Year Watch List. The sophomore standout also earned a spot on the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association Pro-Line Athletic pre-2009 All-America team.
Louisville, the 2008 Big East tournament champion, has been unanimously chosen as the favorite to win the 2009 conference championship by the 12 Big East head coaches. Junior third baseman Chris Dominguez was honored as Preseason Player of the Year for the second consecutive year, while junior left-hander Justin Marks was unanimously selected as Preseason Pitcher of the Year.
The Mountaineers begin their season with the inaugural Big East/Big Ten Challenge held in St. Petersburg and Clearwater, Fla. WVU opens the conference challenge against Indiana on Feb. 20 at 10 a.m., followed by Minnesota on Feb. 21 at 10 a.m. They finish the challenge on Feb. 22 against Illinois at 1 p.m.
Preseason BIG EAST Poll
Team Points (First Place) 2008 Overall 2008 BIG EAST 1. Louisville* 121 (11) 41-19 16-11 2. USF 103 31-27 14-13 3. Notre Dame 99 33-21-1 16-10 4. St. John’s 93 (1) 41-14 20-7 5. Cincinnati 77 23-11 19-8 6. Connecticut 62 27-28 11-16 7. West Virginia 60 35-21 13-14 8. Rutgers 58 23-29-1 11-16 9. Seton Hall 49 31-25 15-12 10. Villanova 31 30-28 12-15 11. Pittsburgh 27 19-34 7-19 12. Georgetown 12 18-32 7-20
