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Figuring out top 10 or even top 20 state rankings from softball’s top three states of California, Florida and Texas can be the most difficult part of compiling the Extra Elite Eighty national rankings each week.
We have an advantage for California because we’ve been following the top teams from all corners of the state for nearly 40 years for Cal-Hi Sports (CalHiSports.com). But including results through Tuesday for the Wednesday turn-in of the Extra Elite Eighty causes problems because just about every week this season there’s been upsets in Southern California on Tuesdays so teams that were just ranked the day before for the state have to be shuffled again.
That happened this week with previous Extra Elite Eighty No. 28 Chino Hills losing on Tuesday to league rival Etiwanda 11-6.
Florida’s Lakewood Ranch continues this week in the No. 1 position in Florida and for the nation after a 3-0 week. National No. 5 and state No. 2 Winter Springs went 2-0 and also didn’t move.
The Florida order wasn’t as easy to do after that, however, as an unbeaten Class 1A team, Trenton, took on previous national No. 6 Oakleaf and came through for an 8-3 victory. Oakleaf had played the night before and posted a win over Bartow in the weather-delayed championship game of the Kissimmee Klassic and then lost again for this week’s rankings to Ridgeview (Orange Park, Fla.).
“This was a David vs. Goliath type of meeting, and we just filled our pockets full of rocks,” Trenton head coach Todd Bryant told the Gainesville Sun. “We caught them at the right time, coming off their win over Bartow. They are a great team, you can see that. But we played with them and beat two college-signing pitchers. We are trying to keep our competitive edge.”
Also now showing two wins on its schedule over Gainesville (which was in our preseason rankings), Trenton needed to come into this week’s national rankings. But how high? It’s still a Class 1A team and obviously isn’t going to be facing teams like Lakewood Ranch or Winter Springs in the playoffs. The spot we settled on was No. 31, ahead of East Lake (Tarpon Springs), which has its one loss to Oakleaf, and Oakleaf itself. Of course, if Oakleaf were to come back and win a state title in its much-stronger division it also can go back in front of Trenton despite the loss.
While Florida has a lot of its top teams spread out into different playoff divisions, Texas does have the bulk of its best teams all together in Class 6A. The difficulty in Texas, though, is that Texas state rankings and even some of the local rankings in Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston often don’t agree. Plus, when the playoffs do start, we get the fun task of trying to rank teams that may have lost a game but won a best-of-three series to move on into the next round.
With Texas No. 1 and national No. 2 Cedar Ridge continuing to win, the big result of the week in Texas was previous national No. 10 Barbers Hill falling 6-5 to previous No. 12 Klein Collins (which this week moved up to No. 8 in the nation). Klein Collins won with a dramatic three-run rally in the bottom of the seventh inning. Junior leadoff hitter Mia Cantu shined by going 3-for-4 with a double and two RBI.
Naturally, other teams from states that might only have one or two teams to consider nationally have to be followed just as closely. For last week’s rankings, one score that we missed from that Tuesday was Philadelphia of Philadelphia, Miss., ending the 65-game winning streak of previous No. 9 Neshoba Central (Philadelphia, Miss.) with 2-0 triumph.
The Rockets have an earlier 5-0 win over their arch-rivals and likely can still get back into the top 10 if they win another state title and they continue to get help from Fairhope (Ala.), which is the one notable out-of-state win on their resume.
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(Previous ranking in parentheses)
(Through games of Tuesday, April 23, 2019)
1. (1) Lakewood Ranch (Bradenton, Fla.) 22-0
2. (2) Cedar Ridge (Round Rock, Texas) 28-0
3. (3) Norco (Norco, Calif.) 27-1
4. (4) Foothill (Pleasanton, Calif.) 19-0
5. (5) Winter Springs (Winter Springs, Fla.) 23-0
6. (7) Katy (Katy, Texas) 24-2
7. (8) Keystone (LaGrange, Ohio) 15-0
8. (12) Klein Collins (Klein, Texas) 28-2
9. (13) Sunrise Mountain (Peoria, Ariz.) 18-0
10. (11) White Knoll (Lexington, S.C.) 17-0
