Waiting game atop USA TODAY Sports/NFCA High School Super 25
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — The postponement of Kentucky’s state tournament last week forced a waiting game atop the USA TODAY Sports/NFCA High School Super 25 poll.
Unbeaten No. 3 Louisville (Kentucky) Male (36-0) was poised to possibly overtake the two teams ahead of it if the team won a state championship. But the weather was able to do something the Bulldogs’ opponents haven’t been able to do: stop them.
FULL RANKINGS: Super 25 Softball Rankings, Week 15
They will now play their state quarterfinal with Boyle County (Kentucky), which the Bulldogs beat 14-0 in both teams’ season opener in March, on Friday night. Should they win, a Saturday meeting with either Madisonville-North Hopkins or Clay County would be next, followed by Sunday’s title game if they win in the semis. All games are at the University of Kentucky’s John Cropp Stadium.
Only one team in Kentucky state history has finished the season unbeaten — Greenwood. The team went 44-0 in 2013. A perfect season would make it logical that Male would leapfrog both Neshoba Central and Norco, who both have losses and no more games remaining.
Meanwhile, Wisconsin did get its tournament games in, and Oshkosh (Wisconsin) North put a bow on its own undefeated season by outlasting last year’s state champ, Sun Prairie, 4-2 in nine innings, in the final. The (31-0) Spartans rolled past Nicolet (Glendale, Wisconsin), 10-0, in the quarterfinals, and dispatched Kenosha (Wisconsin) Bradford/Reuther, 4-0, in the semis. Northwestern University-bound pitcher Sydney Supple set a Division 1 tournament record with 36 strikeouts in the tournament for Oshkosh North, which tied the all-divisions state mark.
New Palestine (Indiana) rolled past Yorktown, 10-0, to repeat as Indiana state class 3A winners and remain at No. 11, while Donovan Catholic (Toms River, New Jersey) surged to 16th after wrapping up its season with a 10-0 rout of Cedar Grove (New Jersey) in New Jersey’s Tournament of Champions final.
Elsewhere, Marist (Illinois) slipped to 19th after falling in the Illinois state semifinals.
State rankings submitted by NFCA member coaches are used to compile the USA TODAY Sports/NFCA High School Super 25. Teams are chosen based on performance, roster quality and strength of schedule.