Salpointe Catholic’s five state championships and five runner-up finishes in girls and boys athletics in 2021-22 earned it a No. 15 ranking nationally — the best rating of all the schools in Arizona — in the MaxPreps Cup.
The MaxPreps Cup is an “effort to identify the top high school athletic programs in the country,” according to MaxPreps.
Points are awarded for state championships, state runner-up finishes and national rankings. Points are also awarded based on popularity of sport, participation numbers within that sport, the size of the state, the enrollment of schools in a playoff division and the number of teams participating in that playoff division.
Westminster High School in Atlanta was declared the 2022-23 MaxPreps Cup Champion. The school won six state championships during the spring and had runner-up finishes in two other sports. The Wildcats finished with 10 state titles during the school year.
Westminster tallied 2,380 points in the MaxPreps’ formula. Salpointe finished with 1,665.
The Lancers’ top finishes of the 2021-22 school year:
Fall state champions: Boys cross country
Fall state runners-up: Football, girls golf, girls cross country
Winter state champions: Boys soccer, girls basketball
Winter state runners-up: Boys basketball
Spring state champions: Girls softball, girls track
Spring state runners-up: Baseball
National rankings: Girls softball (9)
The Lancers’ state-champion girls soccer and girls beach volleyball teams are not recognized by MaxPreps because it notes that “not all sports fielded by a state are included in the MaxPreps Cup standings. A sport must be contested in 10 states in order for it to be a scoring sport in the MaxPreps Cup standings.”
Chandler Hamilton was the only other rated school at Arizona at No. 73 with 1,133 points:
Fall state champions: Boys golf, girls volleyball
Fall state runners-up: Football
Winter state runners-up: Boys basketball
Spring state champions: Baseball
Spring state runners-up: Girls softball
National rankings: Baseball (10), boys golf (3), football (23)