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As many teams that have not yet played any games stay locked in their preseason ranking positions, there has been some movement and plenty of newcomers in the first Extra Elite Eighty national rankings of the 2020 spring season.
That’s because there’s already been some teams making huge noise in the power states of Florida, California and Texas and some of the teams in those states have been collecting wins for the last two weeks.
Preseason national No. 1 Lakewood Ranch (Bradenton, Fla.) has not only been collecting wins but by impressive margins. Head coach TJ Goelz’s squad, in fact, has outscored its first six opponents by a whopping 60-1 combined score. The Mustangs’ closest game so far was a 4-0 victory against Charlotte (Punta Gorda, Fla.).
Click HERE to see the Preseason 2020 Extra Elite Eighty High School Rankings
Preseason No. 2 Norco (Norco, Calif.) and preseason No. 3 Winter Springs (Fla.) remain in those positions in these first regular season rankings, but both have had close calls.
The Cougars needed a walkoff single in the bottom of the seventh by Kyleigh Sand to get past Mater Dei (Santa Ana, Calif.) 5-4 while the Bears had to go to the ninth inning before they could declare victory over Oxbridge Academy (West Palm Beach, Fla.).
Norco and many other top teams from Southern California, Arizona and other western states will all be converging on Bullhead City, Ariz., this weekend for one of the nation’s most prestigious tournaments, the Dave Kops Tournament of Champions.
The team making the most noise in California that has charged up from the preseason bubble has been Yucaipa. The Thunderbirds have split with preseason ranked Santiago (Corona, Calif.) and have a win over preseason No. 4 Great Oak (Temecula, Calif.). Yucaipa was only 13-12 one year ago.
Texas has had a change at the top, but it didn’t cause major rankings shifts. That was when preseason No. 8 Forney was able to defeat preseason No. 5 Barbers Hill (Mt. Belvieu, Texas). In this week’s rankings, it was simply a shift of those teams in those positions since neither one has lost in any other game.
Several other Texas teams have had to drop out, which created room for several others to move up.
Unbeaten Alvin, which also has taken over the top spot in the Texas Girls Coaches Association Class 6A state rankings, is one of this week’s top national newcomers.
But the team at Santa Fe (Santa Fe, Texas) that is perhaps the most impossible not to root for this season also has gone in.
Santa Fe is near the top of the state rankings in Class 5A this week at 13-0. That is the school that just two years ago suffered one of the worst school shootings in U.S. history with eight students and two teachers murdered in art classes.
Florida also had some upheaval in the rankings behind Lakewood Ranch, Winter Springs and Coral Springs Charter. The team coming up the most as a newcomer this week is 6-0 Park Vista (Lake Worth). That team is third in Class 8A in the state and had a 7-2 win over that same Oxbridge Academy team that went into extra innings with Winter Springs.
— Mark Tennis
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Extra Elite Eighty High School Softball Rankings
(Previous ranking in parentheses)
(After games of Tuesday, March 3)
1. (1) Lakewood Ranch (Bradenton, Fla.) 6-0
2. (2) Norco (Norco, Calif.) 7-0
3. (3) Winter Springs (Winter Springs, Fla.) 6-0
4. (6) Chino Hills (Chino Hills, Calif.) 6-0
5. (8) Forney (Forney, Texas) 11-0
6. (7) Foothill (Pleasanton, Calif.) 1-0
7. (22) Los Alamitos (Los Alamitos, Calif.) 5-0
8. (5) Barbers Hill (Mt. Belvieu, Texas) 11-1
9. (9) Male (Louisville, Ky.) 0-0
10. (16) Coral Springs Charter (Coral Springs, Fla.) 3-0
*** Scroll down to see the rest of the Top 50, the 30 Teams on the Bubble and those who dropped out…