UH picked to finish seventh in BWC

The Big West came out with its preseason baseball poll on Thursday and Hawaii was picked to finish seventh out of nine teams.

Here’s the full breaking news story.

Hawaii is coming off its best finish in its three-year history in the Big West. The Rainbow Warriors were 12-12 in conference last year, losing all nine games against Cal Poly, UC Irvine and Cal State Fullerton but going 12-3 against the rest of the conference.

The highlight of the season was the undefeated six-game road trip late in the year at UC Riverside and Long Beach State. The Dirtbags got some serious love from the coaches in the preseason poll, earning three of the nine first-place votes. They were picked third behind defending champion Cal State Fullerton and UC Irvine.

LBSU will be an interesting team to watch. It might have the best position player in the conference in shortstop Garett Hampson and returning right-hander Chris Mathewson was the top freshman pitcher in the league last year.

Interesting also to see Northridge picked fifth, ahead of both Cal Poly and UH. CSUN finished 6-18 in the conference last year.

As for UH, the team is off the next two days but will practice both Saturday and Sunday. Still working on getting a roster for the alumni team as that game is a week from Saturday.

Season begins in just 16 days at UH-Hilo.