Thursday, June 3, 2010

MORAVIAN SOFTBALL SQUAD RANKED 8TH IN FINAL 2010 NFCA DIVISION III TOP 25 POLL

STARKVILLE, MS --- The Moravian College softball team finished the 2010 season ranked eighth in the country in the final National Fastpitch Coaches Association NCAA Division III Top 25 Poll of the 2010 season released Wednesday. 

The Greyhounds finished the year with a 34-15 overall record, a third straight Landmark Conference Championship, the 11th consecutive conference title, a third NCAA Division III Regional title in Providence, Rhode Island and a third trip to the NCAA Division III College World Series.

National Champion East Texas Baptist University is first in the poll with all eight first place votes and 200 points while runner-up Linfield College is second with 192 points.  The Greyhounds received 113 points to move up from tied for 24th place heading into the NCAA Division III National Championship Tournament.  The eighth place ranking marks the fourth time Moravian finished the season in the top ten.  The Greyhounds were second in 2004 after being the runner-up at the World Series, tied for seventh in 2007 after a trip to the World Series and ninth in 2003.

Moravian, under the direction of 17th-year head coach John Byrne, opened the season with a 6-4 record at the 2010 NFCA Division III Leadoff Classic in Panama City Beach, Florida.  Eight of the Greyhounds ten games on the trip were against teams that are or have been ranked this season including a 15-3 loss to top-ranked East Texas Baptist.  The Greyhounds fell to ETBU, 8-4, in their opening game at the 2010 World Series, and Moravian was eliminated by third-ranked Eastern Connecticut State University, 3-0.

Moravian is one of four teams from the East Region ranked with the Greyhounds being joined by 14th-ranked Messiah College, 19th-ranked The College of New Jersey, which split a doubleheader with the Greyhounds, each team winning by scores of 1-0 and Moravian earning a 6-3 win in the NCAA Regionals and 24th-ranked Lebanon Valley, which swept Moravian, 4-1 and 1-0.

The Greyhounds played a total of 22 games out of their school-record 49 contests this spring against teams that were either ranked in the Top 25 at some point during the season or received votes in the poll.  Moravian posted an 11-11 mark in those contests.

The complete poll can be found at http://nfca.org/top25/index.php?cat_id=3.