Home Runs Come Up Big in Texas; Post-Season Starts in Cali

National No. 1 Melissa High of Melissa, Texas, may have a new reported national home run record for one team in a single season, but the biggest home run of the season in Texas was hit last week by a player from a different school.

That came in a Class 6A D1 state playoff game by Eryn Polite of Clear Springs High, who crushed a home run over the left centerfield fence with two outs and two runners on base in the bottom of the seventh inning in a game against national top five Katy.

Down to your last out. Playing the No. 4 team in the country. Win or go home. Up comes FAMU commit @eryn_polite of @SpringsSoftball. pic.twitter.com/n0n03nkeWH

— MaxPreps (@MaxPreps) May 10, 2025

The Tigers came into that game at 36-1 and were No. 5 in last week’s Super 70. They were leading Clear Springs at the time of Polite’s home run, 5-4, so the three-run bomb won the game, 7-5, and stunningly put an end to Katy’s season.

Clear Springs had earlier won a coin flip so that it only had to beat Katy in one game to advance into this week’s next round of the state playoffs vs Atascocita of Humble (29-6). Katy still had a great all-around season and while the season is over it remained in this week’s rankings falling from No. 5 to No. 28. The big win also pushed up Clear Springs into this week’s rankings at No. 49.

Melissa is in the Class 5A D1 state playoffs and in its case would have had to have been beaten twice in last week’s round by Midlothian to be denied. The Cardinals had no issues with wins of 13-1 and 16-0.

In the first of those games, as reported by MaxPreps, Melissa pushed its season home run total to 107 in its 33 games and moved past the previous reported all-time national record of 105 set in 39 games in 2022 by North DeSoto of Stonewall, La. (which also is currently in the Super 70 national rankings after winning its state title two weekends ago).

Senior Paisley Needham smashed the record-breaking homer for Melissa with Texas-bound Craigan Crabtree clobbering the 107th team homer.

Melissa has a ground breaking moment with 2 swings of the bag tonight by @IsabellTX08 & the breaking record swing by @paisley_needham as the Cardinal softball team belts out 106 Homers in one season to break the National record! 💣 @MCardsRecruits @FootballMelissa… pic.twitter.com/7MrFSA3xKi

— Friday Night Glory (@FridayNghtGlory) May 9, 2025

The Cardinals are playing Lake Belton in this week’s state playoffs and it’s entered into the system as a best-of-three series.

By the time many folks are reading this week’s rankings on Thursday, state championships in Class 7A will be over in Alabama on Wednesday and the semifinals in Class 4A also will be completed.

In 7A, Thompson of Alabaster has already lost once in the double-elimination formatted playoffs but heading into Wednesday hadn’t been eliminated yet. In 4A, national No. 3 Orange Beach and national No. 15 Curry were on track to play each other in the semifinals.

On Thursday, the postseason gets going in California with the start of the CIF Southern Section playoffs. In previous years, not all of the top-ranked teams were all in the top Division 1 bracket with some sprinkled into D2.

This year, the section went to a 100 percent competitive equity format in which all playoff eligible teams were ranked in order using a computer algorithm and then the top 32 were all placed in the same top D1 bracket.

If the same CIFSS system were used in Texas, as an example, you would see not only Melissa (5A D1) and Lake Creek (5A D2) in the same top division, but also very likely Forney, Barbers Hill, Midway of Waco and perhaps even Coahoma from 3A D2.

It might not be fair that not all of the small schools like Coahoma (enrollment is not even 400 students) should be at the top, but the goal is to make each game competitive and thus Melissa crushing home runs all over the place in games it is winning 13-0 and 16-1 might not be happening, either.

— Mark Tennis of CalHiSports.com for Line Drive Softball

 *****

(Previous rank in parentheses)
(After games of Tuesday, May 13, 2025)
* Indicates season complete.
** Forfeit wins, losses not included

1. (1) Melissa (Melissa, Texas) 34-0
2. (2) Lake Creek (Montgomery, Texas) 32-0
3. (3) Orange Beach (Orange Beach, Ala.) 43-2
4. (4) Doral Academy (Doral, Fla.) 28-1
5. (7) Summerville (Summerville, S.C.) 28-0
6. (6) Montverde Academy (Montverde, Fla.) 27-2
7. (8) Forney (Forney, Texas) 31-1-1
8. (9) Del Oro (Loomis, Calif.) 25-1
9. (10) Rosary (Fullerton, Calif.) 25-2-1
10. (11) Barbers Hill (Mt. Belvieu, Texas) 32-3

Scroll down to see the rest of the Top 50 plus 20 more teams on the bubble…