High School Top 25 (March 21)

SEE ALSO: High School Top 25

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Archbishop McCarthy (Southwest Ranches, Fla.) jumped two spots to claim the No. 1 spot in the Baseball America/BCA High School Top 25 after improving to 10-0, while previously top-ranked Stoneman Douglas fell to No. 25 this week following a pair of losses. No. 2 Buchanan holds steady once again and hasn’t moved out of the two-spot since the 2017 rankings began.

“I thought we may have this possibility of doing this well, but in reality I probably thought we would have a loss by now,” McCarthy coach Rich Bielski said. “Just because of how difficult the schedule is, and how deep we need to go into our pitching, but our pitching has really, really stepped up when we needed them to.

“And if there was a game where our pitching wasn’t quite as sharp as we expected, our bats came alive. So it’s really been a great team effort with a lot of great team wins.”

Pinnacle High is the highest-rising team after winning the Horizon Invitational tournament (while outscoring its opponents 48-7 over five games) going from unranked to the No. 6 team in the country. While coach Roy Muller says this year’s team will continue to rely on pitching and defense, as Pinnacle has done for years, Arizona State commit Jake Holmes led the way for the Pioneers by hitting .643 with a pair of homers in the tournament.

“Guy can run, hit, he can throw . . . He’s a very talented young man,” Muller said of his shortstop and leadoff hitter.

Pinnacle will be tested when regional play gets started on March 30, but for now, they are the top team in the strong state of Arizona.

“I’ve been in a lot of strong leagues over the years, but this time this is much harder than it was before. And we’re playing everybody more than once,” Muller said. “We’ll see. We keep playing well, we play from a high-character standpoint, keep our heads up—we’re a force to be reckoned with.”

Other movers include No. 7 Lake Brantley, No. 10 Chaminade, No. 12 Tampa Jesuit and No.13 Harvard-Westlake. No. 15 Jackson and No. 19 Malvern Prep are the only remaining schools in the Top 25 that have yet to play an official game this season. Both teams get started this weekend.

The top 25 teams are selected through a poll of representatives from the Baseball Coaches Association (BCA) and Baseball America. All records are as of March 19. 

HIGH SCHOOL TOP 25
Rank	School	Record	Previous Rank
1.	Archbishop McCarthy High, Southwest Ranches, Fla.	10-0	3
2.	Buchanan High, Clovis, Calif.	10-0	2
3.	Barbe High, St. Charles, La.	17-2	5
4.	North Gwinnett High, Suwanee, Ga.	15-0	10
5.	Huntington Beach (Calif.) High	6-0	13
6.	Pinnacle High, Phoenix	13-1	NR
7.	Lake Brantley High, Altamonte Springs, Fla.	13-0	NR
8.	Shawnee (Okla.) High	6-0	15
9.	Oxford (Miss.) High	12-1	17
10.	Chaminade High, West Hills, Calif.	7-0	NR
11.	Horizon High, Scottsdale, Ariz.	13-1	7
12.	Tampa (Fla.) Jesuit High	11-1	NR
13.	Harvard-Westlake High, Studio City, Calif.	7-1	NR
14.	Harding Academy, Searcy, Ark.	10-1	25
15.	Jackson High, Masillon, Ohio	0-0	16
16.	Walton High, Marietta, Ga.	14-2	NR
17.	South Hills High, West Covina, Calif.	5-1	4
18.	George Ranch High, Richmond, Texas	17-1	NR
19.	Malvern (Pa.) Prep	0-0	19
20.	Basic High, Henderson, Nev.	4-1	24
21.	The Canterbury School (Fort Myers, Fla.)	9-0	NR
22.	Orange (Calif.) Lutheran High	5-1	21
23.	Mater Dei High, Santa Ana, Calif.	6-1	NR
24.	Pope High, Marietta, Ga.	13-1	NR
25.	Stoneman Douglas High, Parkland, Fla.	6-2	1