Last year Fairfield Ludlowe High School won the FCIAC Softball Tournament championship for the first time ever.
This year Fairfield Ludlowe’s Falcons went and defended their conference crown and that enabled them to maintain their position as the No. 1 team in the current GameTimeCT Top 10 Softball Poll heading into the state tournament.
Coach Lou Bunosso’s 22-1 Falcons got one more first-place vote than they did in the previous poll, as this week they received 12 first-place votes from the 14 media voters to lead a trio of FCIAC teams in this current Top 10 poll which was released May 31.
Danbury (21-2), which lost a 2-0 thriller to Fairfield Ludlowe in that FCIAC tournament final, is ranked sixth while St. Joseph (16-6) moved up one spot and into the Top 10 at No. 10.
Second-ranked Masuk (22-1) and third-ranked Woodland (23-0) each received a first-place vote.
Southington (22-1), which defeated Ludlowe, 4-3, in last year’s 2021 Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference Class LL Softball Tournament championship game, is ranked No. 4.
East Haven (21-2) flip-flopped positions with Danbury from the previous poll to move up to No. 5.
The state’s top five teams – Fairfield Ludlowe, Masuk, Woodland, Southington, and East Haven – all won their respective conference championships last week.
Waterford (18-4), Hall (16-4), and Jonathan Law (20-3) are ranked 6-through-9.
Trumbull (15-6) received the 22nd most polling points and is the only FCIAC team among the 14 teams statewide in the “Also receiving votes” category.
Danbury, defending champion Southington, and Fairfield Ludlowe are seeded 1-through-3, Hall is seeded sixth, and Trumbull is 13th in the state Class LL tournament.
Top-seeded Danbury drew a first-round bye into the second round on June 1, while Southington, Ludlowe, Hall and Trumbull all advanced to the second round via shutout victories in the first round on May 31.
St. Joseph is seeded ninth in the Class L tourney and the Cadets also won by shutout in the first round.
St. Joseph and Trumbull are the last two teams from the FCIAC to have won a state championship.
St. Joseph won the 2018 Class M crown with a 5-2 victory over Griswold in the championship game.
Trumbull nipped Southington, 4-3, in the 2017 Class LL final.