Irvine Valley's baseball team was ranked No. 5 in Southern California in the latest California Community College Baseball Coaches, which was released on Tuesday.
The Lasers entered this week with a record of 14-3-1.
IVC fell to Santa Ana, 3-2, in a tough game in its Orange Empire Conference opener on Tuesday on the road to go to 14-4-1.
Irvine Valley trailed only Cypress, Orange Coast, Riverside and El Camino in Southern California.
The OEC was well represented with four teams in the top five and seven teams in the top nine of the rankings. Golden West came in at seventh, Saddleback was eighth and Santa Ana was ranked ninth in the poll.
The Lasers sport a team batting average of .310 and are its pitchers are holding opposing hitters to a .236 batting average.
Nine IVC players, including five regular starters are batting over .300 this year.
Sophomore second baseman Trent Whitaker is hitting .447 with 34 hits, seven doubles, 16 RBI and eight stolen bases.
Freshman left fielder Kyle Dobson is batting .421 with six doubles and 24 RBI, sophomore center fielder Ben McConnell is at .333 with 23 runs, seven doubles, one home run and eight RBI, freshman first baseman Pu'ukani De Sa is batting .328 with eight RBI and sophomore third baseman David Rojas is hitting .313 with nine RBI.
On the mound, Irvine Valley has a team ERA of 2.27.
Sophomore right-hander Justin Dunham has a 1.00 ERA in 27.0 innings with 24 strikeouts. He is averaging eight strikeouts per nine innings on the year and has only given up 14 hits in his 27 innings.
Sophomore right-hander Nick Janowicz has a 1.02 ERA in 17.2 innings with 15 strikeouts, freshman right-hander Brennen Farber has a 1.77 ERA in 35.2 innings with 17 strikeouts and sophomore right-hander Chad Burchit has a 2.59 ERA over 21.1 innings.
Sophomore closer Noah Bradford sports a 2.70 ERA over 13.1 innings with 12 strikeouts.
The Lasers play again on Thursday, hosting Santa Ana at 2 p.m.