Baseball America Ranks Sooners No. 19

Top 25 poll had the Sooners at No. 5 in 2011 preseason

Jan. 24, 2012 Untitled Document

2012 Baseball America Preseason Poll

Final 2011 record listed in parenthesis

1. Florida (53-19)
2. Stanford (35-22)
3. South Carolina (55-14)
4. Arkansas (40-22)
5. Arizona (39-21)
6. Rice (42-21)
7. Texas A&M (47-22)
8. Louisiana St. (36-20)
9. North Carolina (51-16)
10. Vanderbilt (54-12)
11. Georgia (33-32)
12. Georgia Tech. (42-21)
13. Texas (49-19)
14. UCLA (35-24)
15. Texas Christian (43-19)
16. Clemson (43-20)
17. Arizona St. (43-18)
18. Miami, Fla. (38-23)
19. Oklahoma (41-19)
20. Florida St. (46-19)
21. Central Florida (39-23)
22. Mississippi (30-25)
23. Oregon St. (41-19)
24. Louisville (32-29)
25. Cal. St. Fullerton (41-17)

NORMAN, Okla. -- The University of Oklahoma baseball team is ranked No. 19 in Baseball America's top 25 preseason poll, which was released on Tuesday. The ranking marks the fourth straight season that the Sooners appeared in a preseason poll. OU was No. 5 in the publication's listing in 2011.

In December, Collegiate Baseball slotted the Sooners at No. 16. Similar to that earlier poll, Baseball America also had three Big 12 schools ranked in the top 25 on Tuesday with Texas A&M at No. 7 and Texas at No. 13.

In addition to the aforementioned Big 12 foes, OU will also face No. 4 Arkansas, No. 15 TCU and No. 23 Oregon State during the 2012 season.

Sunny Golloway enters his seventh full season at the helm of the OU program and the Sooners return five position starters and two weekend starters from last year's team that went 41-19, including 2011 freshman All-American Dillon Overton and 2010 freshman All-American Max White. Other key starters returning include Caleb Bushyhead (SS), Jordan John (LHP), Evan Mistich (UTL), Cody Reine (OF) and Erik Ross (OF).

OU made its 34th NCAA tournament appearance (fourth straight) in 2011 and won 40 or more games for the third consecutive year.

The 2012 slate will place the Sooners on the road in three of the first four weekends, including a three-game series at Pepperdine on Feb. 17 to open the season.

Season tickets for the 2012 baseball season are available for purchase online at SoonerSports.com or by calling the OU Athletics Ticket Office at (800) 456-GoOU.

The Sooners will host 30 games at L. Dale Mitchell Park in Norman, including non-conference games with Air Force, Oral Roberts, Arkansas, Dallas Baptist and TCU.

The Sooners open the home portion of the slate against Hartford on Feb. 24 at 3 p.m. and the three-game series is followed by a midweek home game against UT Arlington.

The 24-game Big 12 schedule begins at home against Red River rival Texas (March 16-18) and the Sooners also welcome Kansas State (March 30-April 1), Missouri (April 13-15) and Baylor (May 11-13) to Norman.

OU inspires champions today and prepares leaders for tomorrow by enabling its student-athletes to achieve their highest academic, athletic and personal aspirations. The OU Athletics Department sponsors 21 varsity sports with more than 600 student-athletes and is completely self-supporting.

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