The races for state championships are fully underway in many places around the country and even in Texas there were numerous very huge match-ups that took place in the middle of this week.

Since it’s always been the stated goal to include every result as possible when doing these rankings each week, there were so many important games that we wanted to include for this week that an extra step was made to wait for games played not only on Tuesday but also on Wednesday.

There was a rough draft of this week’s rankings completed on Wednesday in the afternoon and then it was reworked once again on Wednesday very late at night and then turned into Line Drive Media headquarters in the AM hours for the usual Thursday release.

Wednesday turned out to be a big one for upsets, too.

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Huge Matchups in Texas… With One Huge Upset

The biggest one came in the Texas Class 5A D1 semifinals when No. 8 Melissa High fell in a 5-4 loss to Aledo. Melissa came into the game at 33-2 and was a two-time defending state champion.

The Lady Cardinals’ also were the No. 1 team in the nation from at least one other source. Their season is over since unlike other semifinals it was a one-game playoff.

Perhaps Melissa was looking past Aledo since its expected opponent in the state final in that division was No. 5 Barbers Hill.

In the rough draft rankings done earlier on Tuesday, Melissa was going to be in front of Barbers Hill since that team lost a game last week in a best-of-three series with La Porte.

Instead, not just because Melissa lost on Wednesday but also because previous SUPER 70 No. 7 Melbourne (Fla.) and No. 9 Queen Creek (Ariz.) also lost in state playoffs last week, Barbers Hill ended up not dropping after that one loss.

SUPER 70 No. 2 Lake Creek of Montgomery, Texas, also played in a Wednesday night game. The Lions almost were upset as well. They needed 11 innings to get past Liberty Hill, 9-4, but they also had not yet clinched a spot in the state final since that matchup is a best-of-three.

The second game is set for Thursday with a possible third game on Saturday.

The Texas order of teams also was shaken up this week with results from last weekend, including Flower Mound knocking off previous No. 20 Midway of Waco in Class 6A D1 and No. 21 Geyer of Denton dropping a game in its series that it won vs Byron Nelson (Trophy Club) in Class 6A D2.

All the losses have helped previous No. 24 Katy jump up 10 spots in this week’s rankings. The Tigers had a 2-0 sweep in Class 6A D2 over Clear Creek.

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California Action

Wednesday also was when the CIF Southern Section Division I playoffs in California reached its quarterfinal round.

With many other states dividing up all of its teams into different divisions, the CIFSS playoffs are done by competitive equity seeding and that makes it the toughest bracket in the nation.

Previous No. 6 and top seed Murrieta Mesa wasn’t involved in the Wednesday games because the Rams had lost in the previous round to La Habra and were ousted. Our national No. 3, Norco, which should have been seeded first, won on Wednesday, 8-0, over Notre Dame of Sherman Oaks and advanced to the semifinals.

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Florida’s No. 1 Team Eliminated… & A Dozen New Teams Make The Rankings

Florida’s No. 1 team for the last few weeks, Melbourne, also has been eliminated in its quest for a state title. It’s hard to call it a big upset, though, when the Bulldogs lost in the Class 6A quarterfinals to Bartow, a school that has been among the top teams in Florida for many years. In this week’s rankings, Bartow jumped from No. 30 to No. 9 and will now face new No. 6 Doral Academy in Thursday’s state semifinals.

In addition to No. 2 Lake Creek and No. 3 Norco, national No. 1 South Warren of Kentucky has continued to win and was sitting at 38-0 when checked on Wednesday night.

In all, after a crazy couple of days that included previously unbeaten Ponderosa of Shingle Springs getting upset by Vanden of Fairfield in the CIF Sac-Joaquin Section D3 playoffs and ruining what many were thinking was going to be a showdown on Saturday in the title game vs unbeaten nationally ranked Destiny Christian, there were 12 new teams added to this week’s rankings.

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Line Drive SUPER 70 National High School Softball Rankings

Thru results of Wednesday, May 20, 2026

(Previous rank in parentheses)

*Season complete.

1. (1) South Warren (Bowling Green, Ky.) 38-0

2. (2) Lake Creek (Montgomery, Texas) 38-1

3. (3) Norco (Norco, Calif.) 27-2

4. (4) Orange Beach (Orange Beach, Ala.) 45-1

5. (5) Barbers Hill (Mt. Belvieu, Texas) 39-4

6. (12) Doral Academy (Doral, Fla.) 26-2

7. (10) Destiny Christian (Sacramento, Calif.) 27-0

8. (11) Thompson (Alabaster, Ala.) 44-1-2

9. (30) Bartow (Bartow, Fla.) 27-3

10. (15) Barrington (Barrington, Ill.) 33-0