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Early Chaos Shakes Up Softball America’s Week 2 College Softball Top 25 Rankings

Two Top 10 teams from last week tumbled after the season's opening weekend.
Nicole Reitz|
The Oregon Ducks entered the 2026 season ranked No. 5 by Softball America.
The Oregon Ducks entered the 2026 season ranked No. 5 by Softball America. | Brett Rojo-Imagn Images

The first week of college softball play was one for the books.

After several upsets, grand slams, no-hitters, and run-rule victories, there’s already a shakeup within Softball America’s Top 25 rankings. 

The Texas Tech Red Raiders remain No.1 after taking down Texas A&M, but the undefeated Tennessee Lady Vols jump from No. 4 to No. 2 after both Texas and Oklahoma took losses. 

Florida State and Virginia Tech rise, while Clemson and Oregon fall out of the Top 10. 

Take a look at the current Top 10 and visit Softball America for the full ranking. 

Softball America Top 10 College Softball Ranking

  1. Texas Tech (6-0), Previous Rank: 1
  2. Tennessee (5-0), Previous Rank: 4
  3. Texas (4-1), Previous Rank: 2
  4. Oklahoma (3-1), Previous Rank: 3
  5. Florida State (5-0), Previous Rank: 6
  6. UCLA (5-0), Previous Rank: 8
  7. Florida (5-0), Previous Rank: 10
  8. Alabama (5-0), Previous Rank: 13
  9. Arkansas (4-1), Previous Rank: 7
  10. LSU (6-0), Previous Rank: 12

Tennessee Lady Vols 

Karen Weekly’s team absolutely dominated in their first outing, winning the NFCA Leadoff Classic. The 10-0 season opener victory over BYU was highlighted by Erin Nuwer’s second career no-hitter. 

In the final game of the weekend against Oregon, ace Karlyn Pickens tossed a complete-game shutout to knock off the No.5-ranked team. 

The Vols will face Nebraska on Friday at the Shriners Children's Clearwater Invitational, after meeting in the 2025 NCAA Super Regionals. 

Florida State Seminoles 

There’s possibly no one who had a better weekend than the Seminoles. Jazzy Francik threw her second career no-hitter to open the season at home, Shelby McKenzie hit a walk-off grand slam to run-rule victory over Iowa, swept Marshall in two games, and ended the weekend with a 5-0 win over UConn. 

UCLA Bruins 

The opening weekend was historic for UCLA. The Bruins set a new program single-game record with eight home runs during the 17-0 run-rule victory over UC Riverside on Sunday, to cap off a perfect 5-0 weekend. 

Megan Grant became the second player in program history to hit three homers in a game, while Joran Wollery went back-to-back twice in the first and fourth innings. Her fourth-inning homer was the record-breaking eighth homer of the game.

Texas Longhorns

The Longhorns gained their second-highest season-opening victory in program history after defeating Nebraska in a thrilling 15-10 duel, but quickly fell to the Cornhuskers the next day. They pulled off a sweep on Sunday, taking down Washington and UTSA. 

Freshman Caigan Crabtree had a phenomenal debut, launching her first career home run to extend the lead over UTSA.

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Nicole Reitz
NICOLE REITZ

Nicole Reitz graduated from Indiana University Indianapolis with a degree in sports journalism in 2022 and has been writing about softball and baseball since 2018 .Her work has been published in various publications like Softball America, the Indianapolis Star, and SoxOn35th.

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