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WVU baseball picked to finish seventh in Big 12

(photo by John Lowe)

The West Virginia University baseball was picked to finished seventh out of nine teams in the Big 12 this season, according to the league’s preseason coaches poll released Thursday.

The Mountaineers, who did receive one first-place vote in the preseason poll, went 38-22 last season with a 13-11 record in the Big 12. West Virginia advanced to the championship round of the Big 12 tournament in 2019 before losing to Oklahoma State. That was good enough to land WVU and Morgantown a gig as the host site for NCAA tournament regional games, where the Mountaineers were eliminated on a walk-off grand slam against Texas A&M at Monongalia County Ballpark.

For the third consecutive season, Texas Tech was picked as the preseason Big 12 favorite.

WVU opens the 2020 season on Feb. 14 with a three-game weekend series at Jacksonville. The Mountaineers open the home portion of their schedule on Feb. 18 against Canisius.

2020 Big 12 Conference Baseball Preseason Poll (first-place votes in parenthesis)

  1. Texas Tech (6)              62
  2. Oklahoma State          52
  3. TCU (1)                        45
  4. Oklahoma                   40
  5. Texas (1)                      38
  6. Baylor                          35
  7. West Virginia (1)          26
  8. Kansas State                15
  9. Kansas                         11