The Niners picked up their first signature win of 2023 this past week, beating the 11th ranked South Carolina Gamecocks at Truist Field in Uptown Charlotte. Charlotte beat the Gamecocks by the score of 6-2 behind a 3-run homer from Cam Fisher and a strong 5 scoreless innings from Collin Kramer.
Charlotte finished the week 2-2, after dropping the series to Dallas Baptist 2-1. That leaves the Niners at 3-3 after two weeks of Conference USA play.
This week, the Niners welcome Gardner-Webb to the Hayes for a mid-week game, before heading to Birmingham to take on UAB.
A look at the national rankings for teams of interest this week:
D1 Baseball– 8 ECU; 9 South Carolina; 13 UNC; 19 Coastal Carolina
Baseball America– 9 ECU; 10 South Carolina; 15 UNC
USA Today Coaches Poll– 8 South Carolina; 10 ECU; 14 UNC; RV- CCU, UTSA, ODU, VT, DBU
Charlotte has currently played the toughest schedule in Conference USA based on Strength of Schedule, where the Niners currently rank 7th in the country.
The RPI data is starting to settle a little more this week with CLT sitting at 72. That increased 32 spots from last week. We use Warren Nolan as our source for RPI data and overall Conference USA is rated 11th with a record of 99-72 out of conference. Conference USA now has five teams in the RPI Top 100 (UTSA, DBU, CLT, FAU, Rice).
Here is how Conference USA stands after one weekend of conference play, listed in order that CLT plays them:
Here’s a look at how Charlotte’s OOC opponents have fared:
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