INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. – The Valdosta State baseball team is one of ten schools from the South Region under consideration in the first NCAA Division II Baseball region rankings, released by the national office Wednesday afternoon.
 
VSU is 30-12 overall and 19-8 in Gulf South Conference play and join fellow GSC members Alabama Huntsville, Montevallo, West Florida and West Georgia in the initial poll, along with Sunshine State Conference members Barry, Florida Southern, Florida Tech, Rollins and Tampa.  Next week's region rankings will be ranked in numerical order. 
 
The conference tournament champions in both the GSC and Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SIAC) will earn an automatic berth to the NCAA South Regional, while the SSC will use its regular season champion as the auto qualifier as the league doesn't sponsor a conference tournament.
 
Click here for the complete region polls.
 
The Blazers are currently 5-5 against the teams under consideration in the South Region poll, while they are 2-0 against Georgia Southwestern who is among teams considered in the Southeast Region. 
 
There will be two more publicly announced region polls each of the next two Wednesday's, prior to the NCAA Division II Baseball Selection Show, scheduled to be streamed on Sunday, May 14 in the evening.
 
The Blazers are looking for their 23^rd appearance in the NCAA postseason as the team is 53-48 all-time with one national championship (1979), two third place finishes and three in fourth place.  The 53 victories are eighth-most all-time in NCAA Division II.  The Blazers are looking for their first back-to-back appearances in the postseason since 2009-2010.  VSU went 1-2 last year in the regional as a No. 4-seed, losing to Nova Southeastern, defeating Spring Hill and losing to host Tampa.  VSU has qualified for the NCAA postseason just seven times since 2000. 
 
VSU, ranked No. 17 in the latest Collegiate Baseball Newspaper Top 25, hosts No. 15 West Florida in the regular season Gulf South Conference series finale beginning with a single game Friday at 5 p.m. at Billy Grant Field at Tommy Thomas Park, and then will conclude the series Saturday at 1 p.m. for Senior Day with a doubleheader against the Argos.  The series has plenty of conference regular season title and conference tournament seeding implications.
 
The NCAA South Regional is set for May 18-May 20, 2023.  Normally the top two seed earn hosting duties as each of the two sites are comprised of four teams in a double-elimination format.  The two winners of each site then will be at the location of the highest remaining seed for a best-of-three series, May 26-27.  The winner of the "Super Regional" will advance to the NCAA Division II Baseball National Championship rounds, scheduled for June 3-10 in Cary, N.C., at the USA Baseball National Training Complex.