Players and coaches from No. 4 St. Francis of Mountain View are shown after they completed 26-0 season on Saturday for the second-best perfect season in CCS history. Photo: @cifccs / Twitter.com.
As the CIF Southern Section moves into its championship games next week with its matchups already determined, teams are on the move in this week’s rankings. Esperanza has gone to No. 1 after its win over previous No. 1 Norco last Thursday, Villa Park nudges up to No. 3, Upland moves from No. 9 to No. 5 and Roosevelt of Eastvale is now No. 9. The only team to actually lock up at least a final top five state ranking so far, however, is St. Francis of Mountain View, which has wrapped up 26-0 season by winning CIF Central Coast Section Open Division title.
FOR GOLD CLUB LIST COMPILED BY SPECIAL CONTRIBUTOR CARLOS ARIAS OF THE CLASS OF 2022 HOT 100 PLAYER RECRUITS, CLICK HERE. Note: Carlos sent us these player rankings just a few weeks ago. We are continuing to pray for him as he recovers in Fresno hospital after suffering a stroke.
FOR UP-TO-DATE STATE TEAM SOFTBALL RECORDS (GOLD CLUB), CLICK HERE.
Note: This is a Gold Club post on CalHiSports.com. After the preseason, all weekly and final state rankings are available only to our Gold Club members. To check out getting a Gold Club membership to see all of those rankings plus all of our updated state record lists (softball individuals coming soon), totally authentic historical features, and more, CLICK HERE.
Note About CIF Regional Playoffs: It was announced several weeks ago that the CIF will be hosting a one-week Southern California regional playoff for softball that will be held from June 19 to June 26. This was the year, remember, that the CIF was going to have both NorCal and SoCal regionals in softball and then CIF state finals in several divisions. There has never been any softball playoffs in California ever beyond the CIF section levels so even though NorCal regional playoffs aren’t happening, this is still a big deal that SoCal regionals are taking place. We don’t know, of course, which schools will opt out of going on beyond the section playoffs and we don’t know how many travel ball players will be skipping out on the rest of this strange, later than usual high school season to concentrate only on those travel ball events. As with everything else COVID-19 related, we will just have to wait and see. For the record, the CIF sections that will be advancing teams into the SoCal regional playoffs will be the Southern, San Diego, L.A. City and Central Sections. In normal years, Central Section teams can be placed by the CIF into either the NorCal or SoCal regional brackets.
