LEXINGTON ? Junior Ryan Strieby was named to the College Baseball Foundation National Honor Roll on Tuesday after leading Kentucky to a sweep of Mississippi State over the weekend.
The junior first baseman had a huge week, crushing three home runs and driving in six. Strieby hit a homer in each of the three games to push his team-leading total to 18, which is among the top 10 single-season totals in school history.
The series sweep helped Kentucky clinch a share of its first Southeastern Conference Eastern Division championship in 30 years. The Wildcats are also one win shy of the first overall SEC title in school history, which would mark an historic worst-to-first turnaround. No team in the 73-year history of the conference has ever gone won the league title after finishing last the season before.
Strieby continued his offensive barrage on Monday by belting a towering grand slam to help UK past Belmont. The four RBIs gave him 74 for the year which broke a 15-year old school record as well as took over the national lead in the category.
Strieby and fourth-ranked Kentucky, which has won 16 of its last 17, return to action this weekend at No. 11 Georgia with a three-game set beginning Friday.
Kentucky Projected as a National Seed: Just two months ago, the Kentucky baseball team was projected to be a bubble team on the outside looking in by SEbaseball.com. Tuesday, the website?s NCAA Tournament projection had UK as one of the tournament?s top eight national seeds.
According to the projection, released weekly by the Rivals.com affiliated website, Kentucky would earn the No. 6 overall seed for the tournament and host N.C. State, Stanford and Illinois-Chicago in a regional.
A top eight national seed also means Kentucky would have the inside track to host a super regional the next weekend. SEbaseball.com had the Wildcats paired up against the Charlottesville, Va., regional and host Virginia.
The projection had nine of the SEC?s 12 teams earning bids to the tournament and four hosting regionals. Arkansas, Alabama and Georgia were all picked to host a regional, but not a super regional.
