In a poll that saw wide ranges of movement – including the team ranked tops in the nation two weeks ago plummeting to 18^th – the Grand Canyon University Club Baseball team continued a steady rise in the current National Club Baseball Association (NCBA) Rawlings Division I Poll, moving up one spot to No. 10. It's the first time this season that the Lopes have graced the NCBA Top 10, and it's their highest ranking since being ranked 6^th in early May of last year.
 
Six new teams graced the poll this week, six other teams made jumps or falls of at least four spots, but the Lopes have been a vision of consistency throughout the first month of the NCBA season. GCU opened the season ranked 14^th, then used its usual non-conference schedule well, prepping against the usual diet of Phoenix-area community college baseball programs before turning its attentions to a pair of in-state conference rivals. They first used hot bats to dispatch Arizona State University in three straight games a month ago, outscoring the Sun Devils, 39-11, and mercy-ruling ASU in two of the three matchups. This past weekend, sustained snow and rain in Flagstaff forced GCU's three-game set with Northern Arizona University to move from the high country to the Lopes' home base of Colter Baseball Field. Despite the venue change (which kept the Lopes batting first as the road team in all three games), GCU's results were nearly identical to the ASU series, winning the Saturday doubleheader, 10-1 and 17-3 (in a mercy-ruled six-inning affair), then finishing off the sweep Sunday with a 14-6 win. It kept the Lopes undefeated in Southern Pacific South Division play and atop the standings by a game over University of California-San Diego.
 
The Lopes also swept the SoPac South weekly awards as well. Lopes' sophomore Brady Steenson picked up eight hits and seven runs batted in during the NAU series to earn SoPac South Player of the Week honors, while GCU freshman hurler Wyatt Laub struck out 10 Lumberjacks' hitters in a complete-game victory to earn Pitcher of the Week.
 
The Lopes will take next week off for Spring Break on the GCU campus before returning to action on Thursday, March 23 for a non-conference tilt at Phoenix College, then back home to Colter Baseball Field for their next SoPac South series against San Diego State University on Saturday and Sunday, March 25 and 26. The Saturday doubleheader will commence at 10AM, while first pitch for Sunday's single game will be at 9AM. Admission to the tripleheader is FREE.
 
The current NCBA Rankings are listed below:

Rank	Team	Total Pts	Prev Rank
1	Cal Poly	364	2
2	Utah State	343	3
3	Michigan	328	4
4	Penn State	263	5
5	East Carolina	255	9
6	Virginia Tech	222	8
7	Central Florida	207	NR
8	Texas A&M	204	13
9	Notre Dame	190	14
10	Grand Canyon	189	11
11	Miami (OH)	174	19
12	Florida Gulf Coast	165	NR
13	Connecticut	151	7
14	UCLA	150	12
15	Oregon	134	15
16	UC-Santa Barbara	79	NR
17	Boise State	78	NR
18	Florida State	60	1
19	Elon (NC)	59	NR
20	St. Joseph's (PA)	58	NR