PRINCETON, N.J. — Yale was picked to defend its Ivy League crown in the 2018 Ivy League Baseball Preseason Media Poll.
The Bulldogs, who swept Penn in the 2017 Ivy League Baseball Championship Series, received 15-of-16 first-place votes en route to 125 points. After setting a program record with 34 wins in 2017, Yale will be searching for back-to-back Ivy League titles for the first time since a run of three-straight from 1992-94.
The reigning League champions got the nod over Columbia, which returns 2017 Ivy League Player of the Year Randell Kanemaru and finished with 101 points, and Dartmouth, which received the remaining first-place vote and tallied 92 points.
Columbia narrowly missed the Ivy League Baseball Championship Series last season, falling to Penn, 6-3, in a one-game playoff for the Lou Gehrig Division title. Columbia and Dartmouth squared off in three-straight Ivy League Championship Series from 2013-15—closing out a Big Green run of eight-straight Ivy League postseason apperances (2008-15).
Penn, which met Yale in the 2017 Ivy League Baseball Championship series, finished one vote behind Dartmouth with 91 total points to round out the League’s top tier of postseason contenders as the League transitions from divisional to round robin play in 2018.
The bottom half of the poll featured Harvard in fifth with 50 points, Princeton in sixth with 49 points, Cornell in seventh with 48 points and Brown in eighth with 21 points.
The clustering in the poll is emblematic of the parity of Ivy League baseball, which has seen 7-of-8 teams capture a League crown since 2005 and every team qualify for the League’s championship series since 2006.
Over the past three seasons there have been three different Ivy League champions—Columbia (2015), Princeton (2016) and Yale (2017) and only Yale has appeared in multiple championship series, with back-to-back showings in 2016 and 2017. Each of those seasons has also required a one-game playoff to determine the two teams that will compete in the Ivy League Baseball Championship Series.
PROJECTED IVY LEAGUE BASEBALL CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES MATCHUP
YALE
2017 Record: 34-18 (16-4 Ivy)
Season Opener: at Campbell, Feb. 23, 5 p.m.
While Yale will have to contend with the loss of a pair of Second Team All-Ivy performers—third baseman Richard Slenker and outfielder Harrison White—from its 2017 Ivy League champion club, the Bulldogs return plenty of firepower on both sides of the ball. Yale is 1-of-2 Ivies to welcome back a First Team All-Ivy tandem in junior right-handed pitcher Scott Politz and junior designated hitter Benny Wanger. Reigning Ivy League Coach of the Year John Stuper also returns junior second baseman Simon Whiteman (Second Team All-Ivy), junior outfielder Tim DeGraw(Second Team All-Ivy), junior relief pitcher Griffin Dey (All-Ivy Honorable Mention) and sophomore utility man Alex Stiegler (All-Ivy Honorable Mention) from the Bulldogs winningest team in program history.
COLUMBIA
2017 Record: 18-23 (12-8 Ivy)
Season Opener: at UNLV, Feb. 23, 9 p.m.
Like Yale, Columbia returns the heart of a youthful team that fell one win short of the Ivy League Championship Series in 2017. Paramount among those returners are 2017 Ivy League Player of the Year senior third baseman Randell Kanemaruand 2017 Ivy League Rookie of the Year sophomore outfielder Julian Bury, who were each First Team All-Ivy recipients a year ago. Head coach Brett Boretti also brings back junior shortstop Joe Engel (Second Team All-Ivy), sophomore designated hitter Liam McGill (Second Team All-Ivy), junior right-handed pitcher Ian Burns (All-Ivy Honorable Mention) and junior first baseman Chandler Bengston (All-Ivy Honorable Mention). The Lions lone All-Ivy departure was First Team All-Ivy second baseman Kyle Bartelman.
