Junior College Top 25: May 14

It’s down to 40 . . . and counting.

That’s how many junior-college teams are still alive in the 2015 championship hunt as tournaments get underway this weekend around the country to determine the No. 1 team on a number of fronts.

Most of the attention will be focused on the 10-team Junior College World Series, slated to begin on Saturday in Grand Junction, Colo., but the National Junior College Athletic Association also has two more national tournaments scheduled to start that day. The 10-team Division II World Series will be played in Enid, Okla., and the 8-team Division III World Series in Kinston, N.C.

California junior colleges, and those in the Pacific Northwest, are not members of the NJCAA, but they’ll stage their own championship events, with the 4-team California state tournament set for Fresno, beginning Friday, and the eight-team Northwest Athletic Conference tournament, scheduled to begin Thursday in Longview, Wash. All the tournaments are double-elimination events.

Also at stake is the No. 1 spot in Perfect Game’s final Top 25 ranking of the nation’s junior colleges, and it will undoubtedly be claimed by a team that takes home a championship trophy from the assortment of tournaments that will be played out over the next several days.

Entering the final stage of competition, two California teams, San Joaquin Delta (39-4) and Palomar (36-6), hold down the top two spots. Both school’s won best-of-3 series in sectional play last weekend to move to Fresno.

San Joaquin Delta has been ranked No. 1 in PG’s Top 25 most of the season after bolting out to a 28-0 start. The Mustangs open the California Final Four, coincidentally, against Orange Coast, the team that beat them in the championship game a year ago. Orange Coast (just 27-17 this season) subsequently went on to finish No. 1 in the PG rankings.

While California junior colleges have dominated the rankings again, there will be no overlooking No. 3-ranked Iowa Western, which has won three of the last five Junior College World Series championships and enters this year’s event on a 35-game winning streak. The red-hot Reivers (52-5) began the season at 2-3, but have won 50 of their last 52 games.

Led by Iowa Western, all 10 teams in the Junior College World Series are ranked in PG’s latest Top 25. Following the Reivers at No. 4 is Tennessee’s Walters State (54-10), while Northwest Florida State (37-12) is at No. 5 and Yavapai (Ariz.) at No. 6.

The top-ranked team in the NJCAA D-II tournament is No. 10 LSU-Eunice (44-9), which has won four national championships at that level since 2006. The Bengals had to beat Hinds (Miss.), the top-ranked team in D-II, in a regional showdown to advance.

New York’s Herkimer County (45-4) enters PG’s Top 25 this week at No. 22, and is the favorite to win the NJCAA D-III World Series. Washington’s Lower Columbia (36-9), ranked No. 18, has top billing in the NWAC tournament, which is being played on its home field.


Records through games of Tuesday, May 19.