Jan. 6, 2005

SANTA CLARA, Calif. - With a strong group of eight incoming players, the Santa Clara baseball team's fall recruiting class was listed as one of the nation's best by teamonebaseball.com. Last season, The Broncos also scored one of the top groups as Collegiate Baseball News tabbed the 2004 class 25th in the country.

"We are building a strong tradition here at Santa Clara with solid recruiting classes year in and year out," said assistant coach and recruiting coordinator Mike Oakland. "Our incoming class for the fall of 2005 is a talented group of young players. They will each make a positive impact on the future success of our program."

The class consists of five Californians, including three Saint Francis High School students, along with natives of Nevada, Arizona, Oregon and Washington. Mark Willinsky of Las Vegas, Nev., Justin Kuehn of Laguna Nigel, Calif., Sean O'Neill of Tucson, Ariz., Jared Lansford of Santa Clara, Brady Fuerst of Atherton, Calif., Matt Long of Los Altos, Calif., John Irby of San Jose, Calif., and Jeff Lombard of Woodinville, Wash. round out the SCU baseball recruiting class for 2005.

Teamonebaseball.com used a set of five criteria to rank the recruiting classes. Number of teamonebaseball.com rated players, depth of the class, T1 ranking of the unrated players, pitchers signed and evaluating each class without factoring the MLB draft. Of the Bronco's eight signees, five were pitchers and three were ranked among the top 200 high school seniors by the website.

The Texas Longhorns were selected as the program with the top recruiting class by the website. Arizona State, UCLA, Stanford and Miami rounded out the top five. LSU, Notre Dame, Arizona, Vanderbilt and Virginia complete the top 10.

The Broncos will begin their 2005 season with a home series against UC Riverside on January 28-30. First pitch of Friday's game is set for 3:30 p.m. at Buck Shaw Stadium.