Welcome back to By the Books, where we take a look at how our local teams are doing in the CIF, state and national polls.  As always, please remember that these are rankings we compile from other sites, not our own personal rankings.  Baseball and softball are the only CIF polls out this week, as all other sports have begun their postseasons, so we’ve officially begun the wind-down to summer here at By the Books.

Baseball

As was the case all Spring long, Lakewood was the only team ranked in the final CIF top ten poll for Division 1, moving up this week to grab the three-spot, and a nice high ranking in the 32-team bracket.  The Lancers’ strong finish to the season went rewarded in the national polls, as ESPN pushed them up from 41 to 32 in the country, and 99 in the country on MaxPreps.  The two losses two weeks ago dropped them off the BaseballAmerica.com rankings; they’re 17 in the state and 8 in the section on MaxPreps.  Wilson is 43 in the section, Poly is 96, and Millikan comes in at 103.

St. Anthony is no. 8 in the Division 6 poll.

Softball

The Lancers remain the only team from the area ranked in the CIF poll, at no. 5 in the Division 2 poll.

Track

Just a few short weeks until the rankings close, it’s still looking like both Poly’s boys’ and girls’ teams could get invitations to Nike’s first ever track national championship.  The girls’ are still ranked number one in the nation, and the boys’ are up at number 6 (number 2 in California).