Vandy, Virginia tops

OMAHA, Neb. – Vanderbilt is the defending national champion and unanimous preseason No. 1 team in college baseball. Virginia was national runner-up and enters the season well-stocked with starting pitching and one of the nation’s best recruiting classes.

No one would be surprised if the Commodores and Cavaliers were to meet again in late June in the College World Series finals.

First, Vanderbilt must go through the grind of a Southeastern Conference schedule stocked with national title contenders like LSU, Florida and South Carolina. And Virginia will face the usual challenges in the Atlantic Coast Conference from Florida State, North Carolina, Louisville and Clemson – none of them strangers to Omaha.

Vanderbilt coach Tim Corbin isn’t interested in talk about repeating.

“Whether we were 54-21 or 21-54 (last year), it’s a new team and a new group,” he said. “They’ll go on their own path and author their book. Their experiences can certainly help, but beyond that, they don’t have much to do with our identity this season.”

Four schools have made it consecutive appearances in the CWS finals since the NCAA went to a best-of-three championship round in 2003. South Carolina did it three years in a row (2010-12) and Texas did it in consecutive years (2004-05), but only Oregon State and North Carolina have played a rematch (2006-07).

The regular season starts Friday, and there will be a big change with the move from the raised-seam to flat-seam baseball. The new ball is livelier, which should result in more offense. Teams last year averaged 5.1 runs per game and one home run about every three games, the lowest production since the wood-bat era that ended in 1974.

There were only three home runs in the College World Series last year. Vanderbilt’s John Norwood hit the biggest, drilling Nick Howard’s 97-mph pitch over the left-field fence to break an eighth-inning tie in Game 3 to send the Commodores to their first national title in a men’s sport.

Norwood is gone but Vanderbilt returns CWS Most Outstanding Player Dansby Swanson, who’ll move from second base to shortstop, and most of its other everyday players. Carson Fulmer (7-1, 1.98), Walker Buehler (12-2, 2.64) and Tyler Ferguson (8-4, 2.69) are as good as any weekend rotation in the country, and Hayden Stone is back to anchor the bullpen.

Virginia isn’t expected to drop off even though it lost five starting position players and their top four relievers. The Cavaliers will be carried by starting pitchers Nathan Kirby (9-3, 1.06) and Brandon Waddell (10-3, 2.45). O’Connor said he hadn’t decided on a third starter to replace Josh Sborz (6-4, 2.92), who is moving to the closer’s role.

UCLA and Houston are among the teams to watch.

The Bruins won the national title in 2013 but dropped to 25-30 last year. Shortstop Kevin Kramer is healthy after missing the season because of shoulder surgery, giving UCLA much-needed power in the middle of the lineup. Pac-12 strikeout leader James Kaprielian is poised for a big year after an impressive summer with the USA Collegiate National Team, and senior closer David Berg is back to finish one of the greatest careers of any college reliever.

Houston is as high as No. 3 in the preseason polls, matching its best ranking. The Cougars return all four starters from an outstanding staff, and they have back six position players.