For the second straight week in the Line Drive Media Super 70 high school rankings, there are more than 10 new teams populating the first 50 placements with 12 newcomers this week after 14 from last week.

A New No. 1 After South Warren Knocks Off Orange Beach

But the bigger news is what happened at the top. A new No. 1 team had to be placed after Orange Beach of Alabama fell in a 6-1 defeat a week ago last Thursday to South Warren of Kentucky.

It wasn’t that much of a surprise in our rankings, which had moved up South Warren to No. 11 after it already showed a lot of strength in its early games (including a win over highly-regarded Pace of Florida) and it’s known that the Spartans have one of the top-ranked junior pitchers in the nation with Courtney Norwood (No. 7 in the Line Drive Media Class of 2028 player rankings).

Norwood held down the Orange Beach offense on five hits while the offense had some success as Keegan Pruitt, Kinleigh Russell and Layla Ogden all hit homers and McLaine Hudson went 3-for-4 with two doubles.

So what to do with this week’s new rankings?

South Warren wasn’t going to go all the way up to No. 1 (there also was a big game looming for the Spartans on Wednesday of this week vs Assumption of Louisville that isn’t going to be included in these rankings) but obviously had to come up in front of Orange Beach.

*****

California Team Moves to No. 1… But Can It Survive the CIF Playoffs?

While Texas and Florida don’t have an unbeaten team to be put on top, California sure does, so unbeaten Murrieta Mesa of Murrieta is the one going to No. 1.

The Rams have admittedly not played the same type of schedule that other top CIF Southern Section teams have played such as Norco, Fullerton or Orange Lutheran, but they did win the prestigious Dave Kops Tournament of Champions title and we know that eventually they will have to run into top teams in the CIF Southern Section Division I playoffs.

California still doesn’t have a CIF state championship in softball, but that may change for the 2026-27 school year.

Norco also has now moved up to No. 4 in the Super 70. The defending CIFSS D1 champions also have now avenged both of the losses they had earlier in the season with a win last week vs JSerra of San Juan Capistrano. The Cougars won the Michelle Carew Classic in Anaheim the previous week.

*****

The Latest From  Texas and Florida…

Orange Beach also wasn’t the only unbeaten top five team from last week that lost and had to fall some spots in this week’s rankings.

Previous No. 4 Queen Creek of Arizona saw its perfect start end at 22 games with a loss to Red Mountain of Mesa. The Bulldogs bounced back to win 18-0 over Williams Field of Gilbert and went from No. 4 to No. 11 in the rankings.

The Texas rankings continue to be not as clear-cut as other states since Barbers Hill has a head-to-head win over Lake Creek but Lake Creek has two wins over a Conroe team that has a win over Barbers Hill plus Barbers Hill has two other losses.

Lake Creek also is the 37-0 defending Class 5A state champs from last season. We have Lake Creek second this week with Barbers Hill at No. 8.

Florida No. 1 Doral Academy also added six wins since it won the Kissimmee Klassic the previous week to strengthen its hold on that state’s top ranking. The Firebirds moved up from No. 5 to No. 3 in this week’s national rankings.

The SUPER 70 is updated weekly through June…

*****

Line Drive SUPER 70 National High School Softball Rankings

After results of Tuesday, April 14, 2026

1. (2) Murrieta Mesa (Murrieta, Calif.) 19-0

2. (3) Lake Creek (Montgomery, Texas) 28-1

3. (5) Doral Academy (Doral, Fla.) 20-1

4. (6) Norco (Norco, Calif.) 17-2

5. (11) South Warren (Bowling Green, Ky.) 21-0

6. (1) Orange Beach (Orange Beach, Ala.) 30-1

7. (7) Melbourne (Melbourne, Fla.) 19-1

8. (8) Barbers Hill (Mt. Belvieu, Texas) 30-3

9. (9) Fullerton (Fullerton, Calif.) 18-2

10. (10) Melissa (Melissa, Texas) 25-2

… scroll down to see the rest of the SUPER 70…