The ECU baseball team picked up its fourth preseason national ranking of the 2019 preseason after being picked No. 12 by Baseball America the publication announced Monday. The Pirates have also earned national rankings from D1Baseball (No. 11), Perfect Game (No. 11) and Collegiate Baseball (No. 35).

The Pirates, who have made 29 NCAA Regional appearances, won their second American Athletic Conference Tournament title and hosted the Greenville Regional (fourth in program history) in 2018 after garnering a No. 12 National Seed. A year ago, the Pirates finished ranked in five national polls (Perfect Game/No. 21, Baseball America/No. 23, NCBWA/No. 23, USA Today/No. 23 and Collegiate Baseball/No. 29) after posting a 44-18 overall record.

Meanwhile ECU junior Bryant Packard was named a First-Team Preseason All-American by D1Baseball according to an announced Monday morning.

The Greenville native has also picked up preseason All-America status in both Collegiate Baseball and Perfect Game and was selected as the American Athletic Conference Preseason Player-of-the-Year by the leagues nine head coaches.

Packard, who became the first player in program history to earn inclusion to seven All-America teams in the same year, led ECU in seven different offensive categories including batting average (.406), ranking sixth nationally (second in Division I). He was also first in the American Athletic Conference in hits (89),slugging percentage (.671) and total bases (147), while ranking among the league leaders (Top 10) in on-base percentage (462/third), home runs (14/t3rd), runs (51/sixth) and RBI (50/t8th) on his way to AAC Player-of-the-Year accolades.

ECU opens the 2019 season at home against Radford on Friday, Feb. 15 with a 4 o’clock scheduled first pitch.