SBLive's California Softball Top 25: Saint Francis (Mountain View) returns to No. 1; Grand Terrace, Great Oak debut
At long last, it's championship week across all of California high school softball. While some of the CIF's sections have been in postseason mode for weeks and others are still yet to start, this week brings playoff ball no matter where in the state you live.
Here are SBLive's California softball rankings for the week of May 15-21. The rankings are released every week throughout the season.
MORE: LAST WEEK'S RANKINGS
1. Saint Francis-Mountain View (24-2 – 3rd)
With Los Al and Clovis North losing, the Lancers – who have won eight straight including against Archbishop Mitty since a prior loss to Mitty – are back on top again. Only a few teams in the state are realistically in play for the season-end No. 1 spot, let alone with a tiny bit of room for error, and Saint Francis is one of them.
2. Norco (27-3 – 6th)
Norco is also right there in the hunt for the top spot, and a light favorite this Friday against Pacifica for the Southern Section D1 title. Win or lose, it has regionals to look forward to.
3. Los Alamitos (24-4 – 1st)
How good were the Griffins on the season as a whole? They just got knocked out by lower-ranked Pacifica (Garden Grove) in the Southern Section quarterfinals – before even qualifying for a regional birth – and still remain in the top three in the state for now. Their 2-0 record against Pacifica prior to that was a major factor in their current ranking.
4. Pacifica-Garden Grove (22-8 – 14th)
A leap of ten spots this late in the season? The Mariners are on a six-game winning streak of epic proportions – beating Kennedy, Cypress, Bonita, La Mirada, Los Al, and Oaks Christian, with the last four being playoff games. And the first two, plus the Los Alamitos win, were all revenge against teams that had beaten them in their previous meetings. In addition, La Mirada was coming off a win over Norco. Pacifica struggled a bit with consistency during the regular season, but no one ever questioned what the team can do when it brings its A-game, and now it's one game away from a CIFSS D1 championship.
5. Clovis North (24-1-1 – 2nd)
If you lose one game for the first time in 25 tries and it's highly newsworthy, you know you're at the top regardless of one single upset loss. In this case, Clovis North lost to another ranked team – No. 19 Central, which is now No. 13 – and it came with a league title already wrapped up. The loss did drop Clovis North a few spots, but with the playoffs about to start, there'll be plenty of opportunity to rise again.
6. Murrieta Mesa (24-4-1 – 8th)
Despite their 8-1 loss to Norco, it's a good time to be a Rams fan. Their season is not over, and they just reached their highest ranking in months, if not years. After a 9-2 win over formidable South Hills to start the playoffs, they had one of the best offensive explosions of the California high school season to come back and beat red-hot Huntington Beach 12-11 in the quarterfinals. That's good for a trip to regionals.
7. Huntington Beach (24-6 – 4th)
Huntington Beach's outstanding season and incredible late-season run is over following a devastating loss to Murrieta Mesa. The good news for Oilers fans? Their team will return quite arguably the most established nucleus of talent in the state next year.
8. Oaks Christian (28-2-1 – 5th)
Like Murrieta Mesa, Oaks Christian might be far from done despite getting eliminated (by Pacifica) from the CIFSS D1 playoffs. In order to make the semifinals and qualify for regionals, Oaks took down surging Chino Hills and Orange Lutheran.
9. Orange Lutheran (22-6 – 7th)
Three teams inside the top nine in the state have already seen their season come to an end while most of the rest of the state is yet to even start the postseason. Such is life in Southern Section softball. But with all the talent it will return, Orange Lutheran may very well be even better in 2024.
10. Archbishop Mitty (20-3 – 9th)
With the playoffs about to start, the Monarchs aren't the quite the singular favorite to go all the way in the Central Coast Section, but they have to like their chances. In the past month, they've beaten both of the CCS' other two top-ranked teams, Saint Francis and Hollister, although they are coming off a 2-0 loss to Saint Francis, with whom they share a 2023 WCAL title.
11. Hollister (24-3 – 11th)
After a 3-2 loss to Mitty in what may well be a semifinals or finals preview, Hollister rebounded to complete a 14-game sweep of the PCAL - Gabilan.
12. Vacaville (26-1 – 12th)
Make it 26 straight for the 26-1 Bulldogs, who are now the top seed in the CIFSJS Division 2 playoffs despite being the top-ranked team in the whole section. In their last 18 games, they've held every opponent below four runs, all but one below three runs, and 11 out of 18 below two runs.
13. Central-Fresno (23-5 – 19th)
With a 2-1 upset of Clovis North, Central ended up cementing a top-two finish in the TRAC with two games of separation over No. 3 Clovis. After losing three games in its first go-around of conference play, it enters the playoffs having just beaten every team in the league in its second go-around, and looking mighty scary.
14. Sutter (25-1 – 24th)
After a 1-0 win over previously unbeaten East Nicolaus, there is a serious argument to be made that Sutter – who we probably should've had ranked higher even before this week – is the tp[ team in the Sac-Joaquin Section. And Sutter is in Division 5. So let's just say it wouldn't be surprising if the Huskies won a section title in their first year of being in the CIFSJS.
15. East Nicolaus (26-1-1 – 10th)
The undefeated bid is over for the Spartans, but their Northern Section title dreams are not. They'll be the heavy favorite to come out the NSCIF regardless of the Sutter loss.
16. Riverside Poly (23-2-1 – 15th)
Before falling to Norco in the quarterfinals, Poly managed a couple more impressive wins before its season was over, defeating both South (Torrance) and Esperanza 5-1 in the playoffs.
17. San Ramon Valley (20-5 – Unranked)
Officially EBAL champions. In winning the two-game league playoff, San Ramon Valley not only moved to 20-5 but defeated two of the teams it had lost to this season, Granada and Amador Valley. SRV also defeated California (San Ramon) in league play before losing to California the second time around, which means it has a win against all but two of the teams it's lost to this season.
18. Granada-Livermore (19-5 – 18th)
Like SRV, Granada has lost five games this season with three of them coming against EBAL foes that it has also beaten. It opens the CIFNCS D1 playoffs as the No. 2 seed against Bishop O'Dowd.
19. Grand Terrace (23-5 – Unranked)
Grand Terrace debuts on a 13-game tear having not lost since April 1. Last week was one for the books for the Titans, who defeated Valley View 3-0, Whittier Christian 7-6, and Tesoro 10-3. Throw in the fact that Whittier Christian had just beaten Rio Mesa and Tesoro was coming off wins against Valencia (Valencia), Glendora, and Vista Murrieta, and Grand Terrace is cleared for take off as far as rankings go.
20. Esperanza (19-7 – 21st)
The Aztecs ran into a buzzsaw in Riverside Poly in their playoff opener last Monday, and that made them one of many Southern Section teams to suffer an early postseason exit despite being one of the state's top teams. Esperanza does have an undisputed Crestview League title to hold on to, however.
21. Valley View (23-6-1 – 22nd)
Because it lost in the second round of the CIFSS Division 2 playoffs, Valley View's tremendous season might not be fully encapsulated on paper. But the Eagles beat a slew of the top teams in the section this season, and may well remain inside our statewide top 25 by the end of the postseason.
22. Rancho Bernardo (22-4 – 23rd)
We have Rancho Bernardo as the top-ranked team in the San Diego Section entering the CIFSDS postseason. The Broncos just swept the Coastal North County league and finished with two major statement wins – 6-0 against Torrey Pines at 10-0 against Del Norte.
23. La Mirada (18-8 – 25th)
After finishing the regular season with consecutive wins over Gahr, Mayfair, Norco, and Downey, La Mirada took Pacifica (Garden Grove) to eight innings in its postseason opener. One has to wonder what the Matadores could've achieved had they not drawn current finalist Pacifica in their first playoff game.
24. Poway (23-3 – Bubble)
Like Rancho Bernardo, Poway is one of the teams to beat in the San Diego Section entering the playoffs on a double-digit (11-game) winning streak. It opens up at home against San Marcos.
25. Great Oak (19-8-1 – Unranked)
If we've said it once, we've said it a million times – power rankings are about recency, especially when it's playoff time. Great Oak doesn't have a top-25 season-wide resume in California right now, but would any prospective opponent care that the Wolfpack started the season 1-3 when assessing whether or not they'd want to play them in the playoffs? When you look at Great Oak's seven-game winning streak, including postseason victories against Arcadia, Ayala, scorching-hot California (Whittier), and Moorpark, the answer is almost assuredly no.
ON THE BUBBLE:
Amador Valley, Kennedy (La Palma), Bullard, South Hills, Vista del Lago (Folsom), Marina, Moorpark, Cypress, Pleasant Grove, Esperanza, Central Catholic, Whittier Christian, Rio Mesa, Chino Hills, Santiago (Corona), Capistrano Valley
