Softball teams are starting to separate themselves after the second week of competition. Were their preseason rankings too high or too low? Were they left out altogether when they shouldn’t have been? The Arizona Wildcats are firmly in the camp of living up to or even exceeding expectations.
Arizona is higher after week two than it was in all four preseason polls. It rose in three of the four polls for the second straight week.
D1 Softball and Softball America both rank the Wildcats in the top 10. Softball America bumped Arizona up two spots to No. 9 this week. D1 Softball kept the Wildcats at No. 10, a position they moved into after the first week of play.
The USA Today/NFCA poll and the ESPN.com/USA Softball poll still have the team outside the top 10. USA Softball gave the Wildcats the biggest boost of all four major rankings, moving them up four spots to No. 11.
NFCA now ranks Arizona the lowest of the four. It moved the Wildcats up two spots to No. 13 after the second week of competition. This is the poll used as the official ranking on this site.
The Wildcats now have an average ranking of 10.75 across the four polls. That’s an improvement from 12.75 after week one and 14.75 in the preseason polls.
Arizona is the highest-ranked Big 12 team in three of the four polls. The other two teams that are still ranked are Oklahoma State (5-4) and Texas Tech (8-3) after Baylor (6-4) fell out of all four this week.
The NFCA poll clusters all three Big 12 teams together with No. 12 Texas Tech and No. 14 Oklahoma State sandwiching the Wildcats. USA Softball also clusters the three together but has No. 11 Arizona over No. 12 TTU and No. 13 OSU. Softball America has the other two teams a bit behind No. 9 Arizona with the Cowgirls coming in at No. 12 and the Red Raiders at No. 13. D1 Softball has No. 11 OSU one spot behind Arizona and TTU back at No. 14.
The Wildcats can climb even higher if they rise to the occasion at this week’s Hillenbrand Invitational. Arizona will welcome in No. 1 Texas and No. 18 Stanford along with UC Davis and Colorado State beginning on Thursday, Feb. 20.
Lead photo by Madison Farwell / Arizona Athletics