STANDISH, ME – The seventh New England Intercollegiate Baseball Association (NEIBA) weekly poll has been released and Saint Joseph's College is ranked fifth in the region.
Saint Joseph's (29-11, 13-3 GNAC) claimed the program's fourth-consecutive Great Northeast Athletic Conference (GNAC) crown when the Monks rallied from a four-run deficit and defeated Suffolk University, 7-6 in extra innings, in the conference championship on Sunday, April 28th.
University of Southern Maine tops the poll this week with five first-place votes and 46 points overall while Wheaton College is ranked second with a first-place vote and 43 total points. Western New England University (28 points), Eastern Connecticut State University (27), Saint Joseph's (20), Endicott College (15), Amherst College (12) and Suffolk (12) round out the weekly top eight programs.
MIT, Bowdoin College and Salem State University also received votes this week.
With the thrilling championship game triumph Saint Joseph's has now claimed eight conference titles in the last nine years. The Monks have secured an NCAA Tournament automatic qualifier with the GNAC crown and will appear in the national tourney, which begins with regional play on Wednesday, May 15th, for the seventh time in the last eight seasons.
The NCAA Tournament seeds and site designations will be announced early Monday morning.
Saint Joseph's will conclude the 2013 regular season with a pair of contests at Bates College on Wednesday afternoon. The first game is slated to start at 1:00 PM.
Saint Joseph's College is Maine's only Catholic liberal arts college, providing a supportive, personalized and career-focused education for more than 100 years. From its 350-acre campus on the shores of Sebago Lake, the College offers more than 40 undergraduate programs to a population of approximately 1,000 students. Saint Joseph's College Online provides certificates, undergraduate and advanced degrees for working adults through an online learning program. For more, visit www.sjcme.edu.