LSU’s baseball team was ranked No. 2 in the 2009 National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association preseason poll released Tuesday.The Tigers were already ranked No. 1 in the Collegiate Baseball preseason poll released last month.LSU coach Paul Mainieri said he was happy to receive the recognition, but downplayed the rankings’ significance after the release of the Collegiate Baseball poll.”As long as I’m up here, it’s always going to be the goal of our team … to have the best baseball team in the country — even though this is a very subjective thing,” he said. “We haven’t earned this on the field, but it’s nice to know that there’s some people out there that agree with me and our players.”North Carolina, the team that ended the Tigers’ 2008 season in Omaha, received the No. 1 spot in the NCBWA poll after Collegiate Baseball listed them No. 2 behind LSU.LSU is the highest ranked of five Southeastern Conference teams in the NCBWA top 35. No. 5 Georgia, No. 14 Ole Miss, No. 23 Kentucky and No. 24 Florida join the Tigers.Georgia, Ole Miss and Kentucky received slightly lower rankings than their Collegiate Baseball Rankings, which were No. 4, No. 11 and No. 19, respectively. Florida received Collegiate Baseball’s No. 25 spot.LSU also faces Tulane twice this season. The Green Wave were ranked No. 34 by both NCBWA and Collegiate Baseball.——Contact Jerit Roser at [email protected]