LSU Gold

Baseball No. 10 in Recruiting Rankings

by Bill Franques
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Baseball No. 10 in Recruiting Rankings

BATON ROUGE, La. – LSU is No. 10 in the annual Collegiate Baseball magazine recruiting rankings released on Friday, marking the sixth time in seven years the Tigers are in the Top 10 of the survey. LSU was No. 1 in 2007 and 2010, No. 3 in 2009, No. 4 in 2012 and No. 7 in 2011.

The 20-man recruiting class includes 12 pitchers and eight position players. The new Tigers have been engaged in conditioning drills and individual workouts with the returning LSU players since September 3.

“We feel like we’ve recruited an outstanding class of players, and we’re excited to begin forming a team that can return to the College World Series,” said eighth-year coach Paul Mainieri, who directed LSU in 2013 to an SEC-record 57 wins and an appearance in the CWS in Omaha, Neb.

The newcomers and returning Tigers begin their six-week fall practice period on Sunday, September 29 in Alex Box Stadium, Skip Bertman Field, and the full-squad workouts extend through November 4.

“The goal here every year is to win the nationalchampionship, and that’s what we’re going to try to do,” Mainieri said. “We have a strong core of players back from last year’s team combined with an excellent class of new recruits, and there’s going to be great competition during fall practice at every position.”

The 2014 season opens on February 14 when the Tigers play host to New Orleans in Alex Box Stadium, Skip Bertman Field.

Florida is No. 1 in the Collegiate Baseball survey, followed by Mississippi State, Florida State, Miami (Fla.), Oklahoma State, Texas, Cal State Fullerton, Stanford, Oregon and LSU.