SLIPPERY ROCK, Pa. -- The Slippery Rock University baseball team remained among the squads ranked in regional and national polls released this week.

The Rock was ranked 30th in the PING!Baseball Division II national poll, received votes in both the American Baseball Coaches Association and National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association national polls and was third in the NCBWA Atlantic Regional poll.

The Green and White, under the guidance of 25-year head coach Jeff Messer, were ranked 30th by PING!Baseball and received votes in the ABCA national poll last week. In NCBWA preseason polls, SRU received votes on the national level and was ranked fourth in the region.

SRU will take a 2-2 record into a 12:30 p.m. doubleheader Friday vs. Rockhurst (Ill.) at Lake Myrtle Park in Auburndale, Fla. That is be the first of eight Rock games in the Sunshine State.

Rockhurst will be one of five teams The Rock will face in Florida that are regionally ranked this week. The Hawks (3-1) are ranked sixth in the NCBWA's Midwest Regional poll, four spots behind Ashland, which SRU meets in a doubleheader Saturday.

Ashland is ranked 12th in this week's ABCA national poll and 17th in this week's NCBWA national poll.

SRU then meets Minnesota State Mankato (4-1, No. 2 in Central Region) and Northwood of Michigan (1-1, received votes in Midwest Region) in nine-inning single games on back-to-back days Sunday and Monday.

Minnesota State is ranked 22nd in this week's NCBWA poll and received votes in the ABCA national poll.

Following a single game next Tuesday, March 9, against Atlantic Region rival Charleston, The Rock closes out its Florida schedule with a single game March 10 against Southwest Minnesota State (2-1), which is ranked sixth in this week's NCBWA Central Regional poll and received votes in the ABCA national poll.

The Rock concludes its annual spring-break, southern trip with a pair of doubleheaders in Savannah, Ga., against another regionally-ranked team, Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference-Western Division and Atlantic Region rival California. That four-game series, scheduled for March 12-13, will be the opening games of this year's division schedule.

California (0-2) is tied for eighth in this week's NCBWA Atlantic Regional poll.

SRU is scheduled to open its home schedule Tuesday, March 16, with a 1 p.m. twinbill against Washington Adventist University (formerly Columbia Union University) at Jack Critchfield Park.

2010 Rock baseball schedule.

2010 cumulative statistics

March 2 NCBWA polls

March 1 ABCA national poll