Top 9 Teams Remain Same as Post-Season Tournaments Begin

Post-season play begins on a number of fronts this week as junior college teams around the country vie for a number of championships—both at the national and state levels.

Every team in Perfect Game’s latest ranking of the nation’s Top 50 junior-college teams will participate in tournament play in some way, shape or form, including California’s Orange Coast College (31-4-1), which continues to hang on to its No. 1 ranking that it has held since March. The Pirates will begin play this week in the 36-team California state junior-college tournament.

For most teams in the Top 50, the big prize is the National Junior College Athletic Association Division I championship—known more commonly as the Junior College World Series—which will be played May 26-June 2 at its familiar home in Grand Junction, Colo. Through various regional and district tournaments, many of which start this week, 10 teams will eventually work their way to Grand Junction.

Iowa Western (46-3), the 2010 national champion, is the highest-ranked NJCAA D-I team in the Top 50 at No. 2, followed by Tennessee’s Walters State (47-8), the 2006 national champion at No. 3, and Texas’ Howard College (37-10), the 2009 national champion, at No. 4. All three teams have held steady in this week’s national ranking—just as the top nine teams overall have.

Meanwhile, the NJCAA Division II and Division III national tournaments also get underway this week, with the D-II World Series scheduled for Enid, Okla., May 26-June 2 and D-III World Series slated for Tyler, Texas, May 19-25. LSU-Eunice (45-4) is the top-ranked D-II team in the Perfect Game Top 50 at No. 12. No team in D-III is ranked, but long-time power Gloucester County (N.J.) is the top-ranked team in the most recent NJCAA baseball rankings.

California teams are not members of the NJCAA, so do not participate in the Junior College World Series. So Orange Coast’s chances of preserving its No. 1 ranking will be dependent on it winning the California Final Four, scheduled for Bakersfield, Calif., May 18-20.

Teams in the Northwest Athletic Association of Community Colleges, consisting of 28 junior colleges in Oregon, Washington and British Columbia, will contend for their own championship, beginning in mid-May. Defending champion Bellevue (Wash.) CC is the NWAACC’s top-ranked team at No. 33.

To follow the respective tournaments, please link to the following websites:

www.njcaa.org
www.cccaasports.org
www.nwaacc.org

4-23 - Rankings as of April 23
#Conf Conference record (standing)