The USA BaseBlog is a new web site feature found only on the baseball page at www.usajaguars.com. David Kaye, USA baseball's athletic media relations contact, provides an all-access look into Jag baseball. This is the second entry in a series counting down the 10 best games of the 2009 baseball season.

No. 9 - USA vs. Baylor, March 6 (Baylor Ballpark)

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Coming in as the ninth-best game of the 2009 season is the Jags' Friday night game at the QTI Baylor Classic in Waco, Texas. In what will likely be one of the best regular season tournaments in college baseball, USA opens with the Baylor Bears.

This game could prove to be a huge a one for the Jags in their efforts to return to postseason play. Baylor will likely be picked to finish near the top of the Big 12 Conference, and getting a win over the Bears on their home field would earn the Jags some national recognition. Despite being 648 miles apart, the two programs share a number of similarities.

USA has gone to NCAA regionals in 18 of the past 25 years, while Baylor has advanced to the postseason in nine of the past 11 seasons. However, both teams have suffered disappointing seasons recently and are looking to bounce back in 2009. The Bears and Jags both missed out on the postseason in 2004 and 2008, but at least one of the teams has played in a regional in every other season since 1995. Both teams advanced to postseason play in eight of those 14 seasons.

South Alabama and Baylor have met just once before, and not surprisingly, that meeting came in postseason play. The Jags took a 9-3 decision against the Bears at the 1993 NCAA Baton Rouge, La. Regional.

After being eliminated in third place at the NCAA Houston, Texas Regional in 2007, the Bears had much higher hopes heading into the 2008 season. Baylor started the season ranked as the 15th-best team in the nation according to Baseball America, and the Bears advanced as high as No. 10 when they held a 10-1 record on March 10. However, Baylor went just 11-16 in Big 12 play, and the Bears finished with a 32-26 overall record and narrowly missed out on postseason play.

This year's team figures to return the Bears to national promenence. Now in its third season at Baylor, the Bears' 2006 incoming class was ranked No. 1 in the nation by Baseball America. That class was headlined by the starting pitcher the Jags will likely face, Kendal Volz.

Volz spent the past summer with the USA National Team, where he switched gears and worked as the team's closer. He went 8-for-8 in save opportunities and did not allow any earned runs for the gold-medal-winning, 24-0 USA team. He's expected to resume his role as the staff ace with the Bears in 2009. Last season, Volz went 3-6 with a 4.20 ERA and 85 strikeouts in 70.2 innings. With a fastball in the mid 90s and a sharp slider, Volz was ranked No. 6 among the Top 100 College Prospects by Baseball America.

Volz isn't the only big-time prospect playing for the Bears. Among those top 100 players, 12 play for teams on the Jags' 2009 schedule. With five players on that list, Baylor has more than any other school in the nation. The Jags will likely not have to face pitchers Shawn Tolleson (22nd) and Craig Fritsch (37th), but they will face a pair of tough left-handed hitters in Aaron Miller (62nd) and Dustin Dickerson (71st).

With so much talent on the Bears' squad, it's easy to see why a win over Baylor would help the Jags postseason credentials, but what might be even more important is the momentum it would create heading into the final two games of the tournament. Saturday's game pits the Jags against in-state rival UAB, then the Jags take on another perennial power when they face the Anteaters of UC-Irvine Sunday.

Baylor (2005) and UC-Irvine (2007) have each gone to the College World Series in recent years. For a USA team looking to make its first trip to Omaha after so many close calls, wins over either of these teams would be a step in the right direction.

Notes: Matt Jackson, USA's projected starting pitcher against the Bears, began his collegiate career at LSU, but Baylor was one of the final schools he considered during the recruiting process ... There are some interesting coaching connections at the tournament ... USA head coach Steve Kittrell is good friends with UC-Irvine coach Mike Gillespie ... Baylor head coach Steve Smith and assistant coach Mitch Thompson both spent some of their early coaching years working with the legendary Ron Polk at Mississippi State ... Polk is now the volunteer assistant at UAB ... The trip to Waco will be somewhat of a homecoming for USA second baseman Zach Grichor ... Grichor's hometown of Spring, Texas is approximately three hours away, while Navarro College, where he played the previous two seasons, is 55 miles from Waco ... USA's Chris LaGrow and Baylor's Jon Ringenberg are both from Fort Wayne, Ind., though they attended different high schools ...  In the interest of full disclosure, I should note that I spent the past two seasons as the student assistant working with baseball while completing my undergraduate degree at Baylor ... My former boss and the Bears' baseball contact, Larry Little, is one of the best in the business, as evidenced by the fact that he has twice worked with the USA National Team (2005, 2008).

TOP 10 GAMES OF 2009 COUNTDOWN

Click below to view previous entries in the USA BaseBlog ...
"Counting Down the Top 10 Games of 2009 -- No. 10 USA vs. Troy -- Stanky Field
"Meet Corey Powell" - Dec. 4, 2008
"Seven for 2010, Plus 10 for 2009" - Nov. 25, 2008
"Recruiting for 2010" - Nov. 21, 2008
"Signing On" - Nov. 14, 2008