RANKINGS
EVENTS
I COMMITTED
COLLEGE
ABOUT
Any type of team ranking – whether it’s the Associated Press Top 25 in college football or the Extra Elite 80 in high school softball – should be looked at as a snapshot of where a particular season stands at a particular point in time.
That’s why most team rankings come out on Sundays or Mondays when there’s time for people to vote before all of the teams start to play again.
For these rankings, it’s not always possible to do them during the early week window, so it then becomes just as crucial as when to take the snapshot as which teams are going up and which teams have to drop.
When noticing early this week that the No. 1 team in the most recent Extra Elite 80, Lakewood Ranch of Florida, was playing the No. 20 team, Lake Brantley of Florida, in two games on back-to-back nights on Wednesday and Thursday, the time to finalize this week’s Extra Elite 80 would be on Friday morning.
Well, the Lake Brantley girls sure forced some big changes toward the top of the national rankings. They followed up a surprisingly one-sided 11-0 win on Wednesday night with a 5-3 triumph on Thursday night over Lakewood Ranch.
The two wins pushed the Patriots to 9-0 on the season and to No. 1 in Florida. For the Extra Elite 80, they have jumped from No. 20 to No. 4.
Previous No. 2 Villa Park of California, which two weeks ago strengthened its resume by winning the Dave Kops Tournament of Champions in Bullhead City, Ariz., has been moved up to the No. 1 position. But it should be noted that the Spartans have a testy game themselves scheduled on Friday afternoon against Chino Hills (Calif.) that was not waited on before taking this week’s rankings snapshot. Chino Hills enters that game at 9-3 (No. 19 in state).
Counting all results through Thursday of this week also meant that previous No. 8 Baylor of Chattanooga, Tenn., would have to drop. The previously unbeaten Raiders lost on Thursday night to Siegel of Murfreesboro, Tenn.
— Mark Tennis, contributor to Extra Inning Softball
*****
(After games of Thursday, March 24)
(Previous ranking in parentheses)
1. (2) Villa Park (Villa Park, Calif.) 13-0
2. (3) Lake Creek (Montgomery, Texas) 20-0
3. (4) St. Francis (Mountain View, Calif.) 4-0
4. (20) Lake Brantley (Altamonte Springs, Fla.) 9-0
5. (5) Roncalli (Indianapolis, Ind.) 0-0
6. (13) Clovis North (Fresno, Calif.) 10-0
7. (7) Marist (Chicago, Ill.) 2-0
8. (18) Deer Park (Deer Park, Texas) 24-2
9. (40) Bartow (Bartow, Fla.) 10-0
10. (NR) Oaks Christian (Westlake Village, Calif.) 13-0
*** Scroll down to see the rest of the Top 50 plus the Next 30 and the teams that dropped out…