The University of Scranton baseball team is ranked among the top seven in the initial set of NCAA Regional Rankings that were released alphabetically this week.

Joining the Royals (23-9) in the top seven of Region V is Catholic (26-9), Elizabethtown (25-9), Johns Hopkins (27-8), Marymount (Va.) (27-7), Messiah (28-8) and Salisbury (27-6).

Scranton owns an impressive 6-2 record against regionally ranked opponents this season with victories over Babson, Catholic, Elizabethtown (x2), Misericordia and Penn State Harrisburg.

The NCAA Regional Rankings are done by the same regional and national committees which will make the at-large selections for the NCAA tournament and the rankings are done by applying the same criteria that is used for making the at-large selections. The rankings are released following the fourth last, third last, and second to last weeks prior to the tournament selections being made.

Therefore, by design, these rankings are a direct foreshadowing of the at-large selections providing a certain level of transparency to the at-large selection process.

Click here to view this week's initial set of NCAA Regional Rankings.

Scranton will host Moravian in a Landmark Conference series this weekend at Volpe Field with first pitch of Saturday's doubleheader set for 12 p.m.