NEWPORT NEWS, Va. – VCU Baseball was picked to repeat as Atlantic 10 champions in a Preseason Poll of the league's coaches, the conference announced Tuesday afternoon.
 
The Rams received 11 first-place votes and 143 total points in the poll, followed in second place by Dayton, who received one first-place vote and 122 total points. VCU defeated the Flyers 7-6 at The Diamond to claim the 2021 A-10 Championship on May 29 last spring.
 
VCU earned the No. 2 seed at the Starkville Regional after a program-record 22-game win streak guided the Rams to both the A-10 regular season and tournament titles. VCU swept three straight four-game A-10 series to clinch the regular season crown.
 
The Rams opened the Starkville Regional by beating Campbell 19-4, before falling to the eventual national champion, Mississippi State. VCU finished 2021 with a 38-16 record, one of just eight teams in the country to win 34 or more games in every full season since 2014.
 
VCU returns redshirt sophomore infielder Tyler Locklear, a consensus All-American in 2021 and the first player to ever win both A-10 Player and Rookie of the Year in the same season. Redshirt junior infielder Michael Haydak was a Second Team All-Atlantic 10 selection in the spring, while sophomores Connor Hujsak, Mason Delane and Tyler Davis were all named to the All-Rookie Team.
 
VCU's 2022 schedule features 15 games against teams that competed in the 2021 NCAA Championship, including three national seeds (Old Dominion, Ole Miss, and East Carolina), and a fourth opponent, Virginia, that advanced to the College World Series.
 
The Rams open up the season with a three-game tournament hosted by Wake Forest in Winston-Salem, N.C. from Feb. 18-20, first facing Rider, the reigning Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference champion, at 2 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 18.
 
2022 A-10 Baseball Preseason Poll
 

	School (First-Place Votes)	Points
1	VCU (11)	143
2	Dayton (1)	122
3	Rhode Island	101
4	Saint Louis	94
5	Davidson	91
6	Fordham	83
7	George Washington	80
8	Richmond	76
9	Saint Joseph's	73
10	George Mason	33
11	Massachusetts	26
12	St. Bonaventure	14