British Columbia Picked to Defend NAIA West Title
LA GRANDE, Ore. – Two-time defending champion University of British Columbia is favored to retain its NAIA West baseball crown, according to a preseason NAIA West rating.
The NAIA West is comprised of four Cascade Collegiate Conference programs, two from the Cal Pac Conference, two NAIA independents, and one member of the Frontier Conference.
This season, there will be no divisions as in recent years. UBC, College of Idaho, Concordia and Corban, NAIA World Series host Lewis-Clark State, Oregon Tech, Menlo (Calif.), Patten (Calif.) and Simpson (Calif.) are all in the NAIA West.
A five-team double elimination tournament will be played on the campus of Concordia University (Ore.) May 2-4 to determine the 2012 NAIA West champion and the automatic representative to the NAIA Championships. (Lewis-Clark State is excluded from the grouping’s postseason tournament since it already has an automatic bid to the World Series as the tournament host).
The five-team tournament will be comprised of the top five teams (exclusive of Lewis-Clark State) in the final NAIA West regular season standings. Teams will be seeded according to regular season finish.
The University of British Columbia defeated The College of Idaho in last season’s NAIA West tournament championships.
In the NAIA’s preseason Top 25, Lewis-Clark State is at No. 11, UBC is rated 20th and The College of Idaho is receiving a vote.
2012 NAIA West Preseason Rating
| Rk. |
Team |
Overall |
Conf. |
| 1 |
University of British Columbia |
31-17 |
23-9 |
| 2 |
College of Idaho |
33-21 |
19-13 |
| 3 |
Menlo (Calif.) |
32-16-1 |
19-5 |
| 4 |
Concordia |
17-29 |
10-22 |
| 5 |
Simpson (Calif.) |
16-28 |
12-12 |
| 6 |
Patten (Calif.) |
24-30 |
11-13 |
| 7 |
Oregon Tech |
17-33 |
6-18 |
| 8 |
Corban |
9-42 |
4-27 |
Note: Lewis-Clark State is excluded from the rating since it has an automatic bid to the NAIA World Series as tournament host