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‘Canes Baseball Ranked Preseason #21 by D1Baseball.com

The ‘Canes were ranked as well as 6 other ACC teams.

By JohnReynolds
NCAA Baseball: College World Series-Miami vs UC Santa Barbara
Zack Collins (pictured above), is just one of the key players the Hurricanes must replace this season.
Steven Branscombe-USA TODAY Sports

Hurricanes baseball enters the season ranked #21 by d1baseball.com in their annual preseason poll. The Hurricanes were ranked among 6 other ACC teams including FSU at #3, NC State at #6, and UNC at #9 in the Top 10.

This edition of the Hurricanes looks to replace many key players, including 3 players who started all 64 games last season, Jacob Heyward, Zack Collins, and Willie Abreu. The loss of these key players will have certainly factored into the ranking of the Canes at #21, and this ranking seems fair considering the other talent ahead of the ‘Canes. This team will be pretty young and will have players who were not used to being an everyday starter and Freshman at key positions, so that will be a challenge for Jim Morris’ squad to overcome at the beginning of the season.

In any case, here is the press release per the UM Athletic Department:

CORAL GABLES, Fla. – The University of Miami baseball team checked in at No. 21 in D1Baseball’s preseason poll released Tuesday.

The top-25 ranking marks the second for the Hurricanes this preseason; Miami was ranked No. 8 in Collegiate Baseball Newspaper’s preseason poll published in December.

One of seven ACC teams ranked in the D1Baseball poll, Miami returns 15 letter winners from a 2016 team that won a third straight ACC Coastal Division title, earned the second ACC regular season championship in three years and qualified for the College World Series for the 25th time in program history.

The Hurricanes’ 2017 schedule includes series against preseason No. 2 Florida, No. 3 Florida State, No. 6 NC State, No. 9 North Carolina and No. 17 Virginia.

The Hurricanes, who earned the No. 3 national seed entering last year’s postseason run, won 50 games for the second straight year and ended the season ranked No. 7 by D1Baseball. Miami extended its own record by qualifying for the NCAA postseason for the 44th straight year; the Hurricanes have not missed the NCAA postseason since 1972.

The Hurricanes open the season on February 17th with the start of a 3-game series vs Rutgers at the Light. Before a mid-week game against FIU and then a 3-game series on the road against #2 Florida to finish the first week of the season.