It’s a mix of returning top teams from last season and highest-finishing teams in this past weekend’s Dave Kops Tournament of Champions played in Bullhead City, Ariz., that are sitting in the top positions in this week’s first installment of the Line Drive Media SUPER 70 National High School Softball Rankings for 2026.

Before we officially unveil our initial Top 70 teams to launch this year’s national high school softball team rankings, let’s first take a look at how prep team rankings originated in fastpitch…

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The History of High School Softball Team Rankings

The SUPER 70 is a continuation of a national high school softball rankings system that was done the first time in the late 1990’s for Student Sports Magazine, a publication that eventually went online and was called the FAB 50 national rankings.

It stayed the FAB 50 when Student Sports was purchased by ESPN in 2008 and has continued after ESPN dismantled its high school sports coverage in 2012.

It switched to the ELITE 80 and now the SUPER 70 based on where former Student Sports Softball Editor and current Line Drive Media Executive Editor Brentt Eads has been running a site.

Keep in mind while going through these rankings that the compiler of them – Mark Tennis –  has also been doing state rankings in California for nearly 40 years and has kept track of California high school softball state records for even longer. 

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Keeping Up on the Constantly Changing Team “Snapshots”

Rankings such as these can always be seen as a snapshot of a season at a particular time.

For this week’s rankings, that snapshot would be after reported results of Tuesday, March 10 but would not include any results from Wednesday, March 11 or later.

There are early week scores that can change the order, and we do stay up very late on Tuesday nights to track down key results.

One for this week was in Florida where McKeel Academy of Lakeland and Lake Wales had a game that Lake Wales won, 9-0. Both teams were unbeaten entering that game and McKeel had a win over Bartow and Bartow last Saturday handed Montverde Academy its first loss.

As has been the case since the beginning of the FAB 50 in the 1990s, the trickiest aspect of national high school softball rankings is the beginning and start of the season in different parts of the nation.

Some teams in Texas, Louisiana and Alabama will have played almost 30 games before some teams in cold weather states like Michigan, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island have even played once.

Then when the seasons are over in California, Florida and Texas, there’s still two or three weeks of state playoffs to complete elsewhere.

We have always looked at teams that tend to win year after year and have already been ranked high by other publications or web sites to be in the highest positions of each week’s rankings. It also helps that many of those teams haven’t lost yet to start the current season.

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Atop the Initial SUPER 70 Rankings to Start 2026 Is… Orange Beach

Sitting in the No. 1 spot is Orange Beach of Alabama.

The Makos were No. 3 in last year’s final rankings and won 12-2 on Tuesday of Satsuma, Ala., to improve to 8-0 on the season.

They were 47-2 last season and were 46-1 and were No. 1 in the national rankings we did to end the 2025 season.

Head coach Sean Alexander has helped to get those rankings by playing top teams in other states, including Pace of Florida. There are no Florida teams shown on his schedule for this season, but squads like Anthony Wayne of Ohio plus McCracken County and South Warren of Kentucky are on it.

The Case for No. 2…

Lake Creek of Montgomery, Texas, also has been a national No. 1 contender the past few seasons and this year the Lions have gotten out to a 20-1 start. They were No. 2 at the close of the 2025 season (behind Melissa of Texas).

They have a loss to Barbers Hill, but they also have two wins over a Conroe team that handed Barbers Hill one of its three losses. Doral Academy of Florida also was No. 4 in last year’s final rankings and is starting at No. 3 at 5-0 for this year’s first rankings.

One of the nation’s most prestigious tournaments – the Dave Kops Tournament of Champions in Bullhead City, Ariz. – has already been played so naturally the results from that tournament greatly impact these first national rankings.

The team we would have had preseason No. 1 for the nation, Norco, Calif., lost twice at the TOC, first to JSerra of San Juan Capistrano and then again to Fullerton (Calif.). 

Sleeper In So Cal

While the winning team of that tournament, Murrieta Mesa of California, didn’t show up on other preseason national rankings we checked out and while they weren’t high in California, either, the Rams are not unknown.

They had the Ms. Softball State Player of the Year last season (Taelyn Holley) and they have shown they’re going to be more than fine with her moving on to college.

Murrieta Mesa topped previously unbeaten JSerra in the tourney final, 2-1, as Lilly Hauser (Arizona) won out in a pitching duel with JSerra’s Llliana Escobar (Florida). Hauser also flashed her speed by scoring from third base on a throw home from first base in the bottom of the seventh inning.

We have the Rams (11-0) at No. 2 in these rankings with JSerra at No. 5

Because of all the teams still not playing, the next edition of the Super 70 will be in two weeks on March 25.

Line Drive SUPER 70 National High School Softball Rankings

After results of Tuesday, March 10, 2026

1. Orange Beach (Orange Beach, Ala.) 8-0
2. Murrieta Mesa (Murrieta, Calif.) 11-0
3. Doral Academy (Doral, Fla.) 5-0
4. Lake Creek (Montgomery, Texas) 20-1
5. JSerra (SJ Capistrano, Calif.) 10-1
6. Calvary Baptist Academy (Shreveport, La.) 16-0
7. Thompson (Alabaster, Ala.) 17-0-1
8. Parrish Community (Parrish, Fla.) 5-0
9. Desert Mountain (Scottsdale, Ariz.) 30-1-1
10. Barbers Hill (Mt. Belvieu, Texas) 21-3

scroll down to see the rest of the SUPER 70…