JDBC Drop/Create problem?

Scenario:
Want to create a table via JDBC

Plan:
Drop existing table (if any)
Create new one

Problem:
If there was no table before, the Statement to drop the table throws an
exception, which is fine and not a problem.
However, if I then continue to try to create the table, I get a "table
not found" exception thrown by the Create
Statement. Doing a commit between the two eliminates the problem, but
this doesn't look like how the code
should work, or am I missing something?

Thanks for input,

Greg Speegle
BaylorUniversity