STANDISH, ME – The final NCAA DIII national polls have been released and Saint Joseph's College (39-7, 14-2 GNAC) is listed 14th in both the ABCA/Collegiate Baseball and D3Baseball.com/NCBWA rankings.
St. Joe's garnered 117 points in the ABCA/Collegiate Baseball poll and 253 points in the D3Baseball.com/NCBWA ranking and sits behind only Wheaton College, the national tournament runner-up, among New England Region programs in both polls.
The Monks enjoyed a record-breaking season as the Royal Blue broke the SJC Athletics single-season victories en route to collecting a conference championship for the seventh time in the last eight years and an NCAA Tournament berth for the sixth time in the last seven seasons. Saint Joseph's owns a 258-94 record and a corresponding .733 winning percentage since the start of the 2005 campaign. Just three New England teams can boast more wins or a better victory rate over the last eight seasons.
While participating in the 2012 New England Regional Tournament, the Monks defeated seventh-seeded Bowdoin College and #4 Keene State College but bowed out of contention with losses at the hands of #3 Trinity College and #5 Western New England University.
The Monks' pitching staff carried the team during tourney play, as the SJC hurlers combined to post a 1.54 ERA – the lowest by any team in the 2012 New England Regional Tournament – along with 37 strikeouts and only 10 walks in 35 innings facing the toughest competition in the region.
St. Joe's capped the 2012 campaign with the second-highest winning percentage (.848) in all of NCAA DIII Baseball and ranked sixth in the nation in both strikeouts per nine innings (8.6) and strikeout-to-walk ratio (2.88). Junior pitching ace Chad Rafferty (Keene, N.H.) completed the season ranked eighth in the country in victories (10).
The 2012 pitching staff also shattered the team record for strikeouts by a (351), set a new low for WHIP (walks + hits/innings pitched) with a 1.24 mark, and posted the second-lowest team ERA (2.82) in program history.
The top-ranked team for most of the season, Marietta College closes out the year as the #1 team in the nation in both polls. Marietta defeated Wheaton, the #2 team in both national rankings, in the World Series to become the first program to win back to back NCAA DIII Baseball crowns since 1979.
FINAL D3BASEBALL.COM/NCBWA POLL
