HS: Winter, spring region rankings, March 2

by Sheldon Shealer

March 2, 2015

For the next month and a half, the winter and spring high school seasons overlap -- resulting in twice as many rankings each week.

The winter season is starting to wind down with only California and Texas still playing. Meanwhile, spring action has started in Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina.

The big news in the winter rankings, Bishop Lynch (Dallas, Texas) ended the 24-year reign of Ursuline Academy (Dallas, Texas) as the state's TAPPS state champions. Ursuline's title dominance was the longest such state title streak in U.S. history. Bishop Lynch pushed Ursuline to overtime in last year's final before losing. This year, Bishop Lynch jumped out to a 2-0 lead and held on for the 2-1 victory.

In another national shocker, SIMA FAB 50 Winter Girls No. 1 Monte Vista (Danville, Calif.) fell to Top 25-ranked [Liberty ca-w] (Brentwood, Calif.) 2-1 in the section final. Since Liberty traveled to Texas where it lost to Grapevine (Grapevine, Texas), which in turn lost to Coppell (Coppell, Texas), undefeated Coppell is likely to move from No. 2 to No. 1 when the next SIMA FAB 50 is released Tuesday.

Several surprises in California boys soccer postseason play resulted in quite a shake-up in the California state and California-North and California-South region rankings this week. But the big news this past week was snow -- 5 inches of it in part of the Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas, area, which ground play to a halt. The wet weather stretched across the Southeast, resulting in cancelations in Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina.

The big mover in this week's spring rankings will be the boys team at Greater Atlanta Christian (Norcross, Ga.). GAC was a preseason SIMA FAB 50 Top 10 team, but will move into the Top 5 after routing former Top 25-ranked Vestavia Hills (Vestavia Hills, Ala.).

See the entire WINTER high school region and state rankings:

WINTER REGION RANKINGS: BOYS (March 2) | GIRLS (March 2)

WINTER STATE RANKINGS: BOYS (March 2) | GIRLS (March 2)

See the entire SPRING high school region and state rankings:

SPRING REGION RANKINGS: BOYS (March 2) | GIRLS (March 2)

SPRING STATE RANKINGS: BOYS (March 2) | GIRLS (March 2)