After spending nearly the entire season entrenched in the top 10, the
Grand Canyon University Club Baseball team dropped to No. 17 in the latest National Club Baseball Association (NCBA) Rawlings Division I Poll. It's a drop of 11 spots – the steepest decline of the season for the Lopes – from
the No. 6 ranking they held prior to the 2022 Southern Pacific Regional Tournament two weeks ago, and
it's the first time since February that GCU hasn't been among the NCBA Top 10.
The reason for the precipitous drop is obvious, since this is the first time since 2017 that the Lopes haven't spent this part of May packing for the NCBA Division 1 World Series. Unfortunately, the Lopes' quest for a third consecutive SoPac Regional title (they won it in 2018 and 2019, then the tournament was cancelled due to COVID-19 the last two seasons) was derailed when
they lost to 11th-ranked UCLA twice in the span of 24 hours at the '22 SoPac Tournament in Lancaster, California.
The second loss sent the Lopes home a game short of a berth in the championship game and allowed 5
th-ranked Cal Poly to win the tournament a day later to punch its ticket to the World Series. The Lopes' D1 team finished the 2022 campaign with a 21-10 overall mark and an 11-1 record in SoPac South Conference play.
The GCU Club Baseball program's chances for a national title in 2022 aren't completely dashed, though, since the Lopes' D2 team went undefeated at the D2 Pacific Regional Tournament and will head to the NCBA D2 World Series in Butler, Pennsylvania for the first time ever. The first action for the 2
nd-seeded D2 Lopes happens this Friday, May 20
th when they battle the University of Washington.
The current NCBA Rankings are listed below:
| Rank |
Team |
Total Pts |
Prev Rank |
| 1 |
Penn State |
375 |
2 |
| 2 |
Florida State |
371 |
3 |
| 3 |
Utah State |
337 |
9 |
| 4 |
East Carolina |
331 |
8 |
| 5 |
Cal Poly |
330 |
5 |
| 6 |
Michigan |
292 |
13 |
| 7 |
Nebraska |
266 |
15 |
| 8 |
Virginia Tech |
249 |
1 |
| 9 |
LSU |
243 |
NR |
| 10 |
Delaware |
214 |
4 |
| 11 |
UCLA |
166 |
14 |
| 12 |
Texas A&M |
150 |
10 |
| 13 |
Auburn |
145 |
NR |
| 14 |
Oregon |
144 |
18 |
| 15 |
Colorado |
122 |
NR |
| 16 |
Notre Dame |
119 |
20 |
| 17 |
Grand Canyon |
83 |
6 |
| 18 |
Connecticut |
66 |
12 |
| 19 |
James Madison |
48 |
NR |
| 20 |
Oregon State |
44 |
7 |
