Week 12 of the 2026 NCAA softball season may not have featured as much craziness as a week prior when each of the top three teams in the NFCA/GoRout Division I Top 25 Coaches Poll lost midweek games.
Nevertheless, there’s a different team at No. 1 in Softball America new top 25 rankings for the fifth week in a row. The Oklahoma Sooners reclaimed the top spot on Monday, jumping past the Nebraska Cornhuskers for No. 1.
Coach Patty Gasso’s team also made another big jump from last week: Oklahoma (46-6, 18-3) moved past the Alabama Crimson Tide (44-5, 16-4) in the SEC standings with only one full weekend series remaining in conference play. The Sooners swept a top-25 series against the Georgia Bulldogs over the weekend in Norman.
Alabama, meanwhile, stayed at No. 3 in the rankings after suffering a 2-0 loss to the No. 8 Tennessee Lady Vols in Knoxville on Sunday, just one day after the Tide opened the series with a 12-0 shutout win on Rocky Top.
Alabama-Tennessee will meet in the series finale Monday. Afterwards, coach Patrick Murphy’s team will close out the regular season against South Carolina (29-22, 7-14) at Rhoads Stadium beginning Thursday. Oklahoma concludes regular-season play with a trip to Texas A&M (35-14, 15-6).
The SEC Tournament begins on Tuesday, May 5 in Lexington, Kentucky.
How to watch Alabama softball vs Tennessee today: Game 3 Time, TV info
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Softball America top 25 rankings: race for OKC wide open entering regular season’s final week
Elsewhere near the top of the rankings, No. 4 Texas Tech and UCLA rounded out the top five of Softball America’s rankings after big weekends by both teams.
The Red Raiders (47-4, 19-2) finished a perfect 5-0 week by completing a three-game sweep of No. 24 Arizona State (35-16, 8-13) in Tempe. With Sunday’s 7-1 victory over the Sun Devils, Texas Tech clinched its second straight Big 12 regular-season championship.
Out west, UCLA ran its win streak to 15 straight with a sweep of former Pac-12 rival Washington over the weekend. The Bruins (44-5, 19-2) enter the final week of the regular season just a game behind Nebraska (40-8, 20-1) in the Big Ten standings. UCLA hosts Oregon (38-10, 18-3) in a three-game series beginning Friday.
The Cornhuskers, meanwhile, have won 15 straight after a sweep of the Iowa Hawkeyes over the weekend in Lincoln. Nebraska close out the regular season at Penn State beginning Friday.
Here’s a look at the full top 25 rankings from Softball America on April 27.
| Rank | Team | Record | Last Week |
| 1 | Oklahoma | 46-6 | 2 |
| 2 | Nebraska | 40-6 | 1 |
| 3 | Alabama | 44-5 | 3 |
| 4 | Texas Tech | 47-4 | 4 |
| 5 | UCLA | 44-5 | 5 |
| 6 | Texas | 38-8 | 8 |
| 7 | Arkansas | 39-9 | 6 |
| 8 | Florida State | 43-7 | 12 |
| 9 | Florida | 45-7 | 7 |
| 10 | Duke | 38-13 | 10 |
| 11 | Tennessee | 39-8 | 11 |
| 12 | Oklahoma State | 34-13 | 18 |
| 13 | Oregon | 38-10 | 15 |
| 14 | Texas A&M | 35-14 | 9 |
| 15 | Georgia | 34-16 | 13 |
| 16 | Stanford | 34-12 | 20 |
| 17 | Virginia Tech | 41-9 | 16 |
| 18 | Mississippi State | 36-15 | 21 |
| 19 | LSU | 33-16 | 14 |
| 20 | Arizona | 34-13 | 19 |
| 21 | South Carolina | 29-22 | NR |
| 22 | Louisville | 41-10 | 22 |
| 23 | UCF | 36-14-1 | 17 |
| 24 | Clemson | 32-19 | 24 |
| 25 | Southeastern | 44-12 | 25 |
Alabama softball schedule 2026: Who do Crimson Tide play next?
Alabama concludes its three-game series at Tennessee (39-8, 13-6) at Sherri Parker Lee Stadium in Knoxville in primetime Monday. First pitch for Alabama-Tennessee is 6 p.m. CT. The game will be televised on SEC Network.
The Crimson Tide wrap up the regular season against South Carolina starting Thursday in Tuscaloosa. First pitch for the series opener is 6 p.m. CT. All three games of the series are scheduled to stream on SEC Network+.
Here’s a look at Alabama’s 2026 SEC softball schedule with final scores and scheduled start times. All times Central.
- March 6-8: at Ole Miss (W, 5-3; W, 13-2; W, 2-1)
- March 13-15: vs. Arkansas (W, 4-1; L, 14-9; W, 4-1)
- March 20-22: at Missouri (W, 2-1; L, 5-2; W, 7-4)
- April 2-4: vs. Texas (L, 9-1; W, 11-4; W, 7-4)
- April 10-12: at Auburn (W, 1-0; W, 4-0; W, 9-1)
- April 17-19: vs. Kentucky (W, 9-0, W, 5-4; W, 4-0)
- April 25-27: at Tennessee (W, 12-0; L, 2-0; 6 p.m. Monday)
- April 30-May 2: vs. South Carolina (6 p.m. Thursday, 6 p.m. Friday, 1 p.m. Sunday)
- May 5-9: SEC Tournament (Lexington, Kentucky)
Record: 44-5 overall, 16-4 SEC.
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This article originally appeared on Roll Tide Wire: Alabama, Oklahoma in good spots in new NCAA softball top 25 rankings