With the 2009 summer college season wrapping up on all fronts, the battle for the No. 1-ranked team in the country intensified Monday night after taking a curious and unexpected twist.
The Cape Cod League’s Yarmouth-Dennis Red Sox, No. 1 the last two weeks and driving towards their third unofficial national title in four years, went down with a thud as they fell 18-4 to Cotuit in the deciding game of a best-of-3 semifinal series. The Kettleers unexpectedly move on to the final, where they will meet the new No. 2-ranked Bourne Braves, winners of seven straight games.
Y-D’s sudden and unexpected demise has opened the door for several other summer teams to claim the national No. 1 spot—notably the Coastal Plain League’s Forest City Owls, who were ranked No. 1 for four consecutive weeks earlier this summer, only to be passed by Y-D. The Owls (49-9) reclaimed the top spot in this week’s ranking with their continued inspired play, and would appear to have to only defeat the Peninsula Pilots in the CPL’s best-of-3 championship series, slated to start Wednesday, to secure a final No. 1 national ranking. It may not be an easy task for the Owls, however, as the surging Peninsula Pilots matched Forest City’s 22-6 record in the second-half CPL standings, and also survived its first two playoff tests.
Several other teams, meanwhile, are lurking should Forest City falter in its final test of the 2009 season. In addition to Bourne (27-17-2), the West Coast League’s No. 3-ranked Corvallis Knights (47-10), the New England Collegiate League’s No. 4 Newport Gulls (37-12), the California Collegiate League’s No. 5 Santa Barbara Foresters (38-12) and the Northwoods League’s Rochester Honkers (42-26) have also moved squarely into contention.
Newport won the NECBL title Monday night, while Corvallis is set to open the WCL playoffs. Santa Barbara, the nation’s No. 1-ranked team in 2008, is hoping to defend its title at the National Baseball Congress World Series in Wichita, Kan., but suffered a setback Monday when it lost its first game in the double-elimination tournament, falling to the Jayhawk League’s El Dorado Broncos, this week’s new No. 8 team.
We rank the nation’s top 25 summer college league teams every Tuesday or Wednesday from 20-plus leagues around the country, and here’s our take on the top teams in Week Nine (last week’s ranking noted in parentheses). Next week’s ranking will be the final one for the summer. Stay tuned to see who emerges as the No. 1.
Shortly thereafter, we’ll begin unveiling all the top major-league prospects who played in the various different leagues this summer.