St. David beat Immaculate Heart 25-7, 25-11 and 25-18 Tuesday night to move to the top of the 1A South Region with a 6-1 record overall and 2-0 in the region. Region standings will determine the state playoffs this fall, not rankings, for the 1A Conference.

With eight state championships, no one can deny St. David is a volleyball power and head coach Tylene Miller is one of the state’s best with 278 wins and three state championships (2013, 2016, 2019) to her name. Miller is one title shy of the four titles held by former Tiger head coach Orland Merrill (1976, 1982, 1983, 1989) and Donald Roylance won the first for the school back in 1972.

Miller guided the Tigers to the 1A state championship last fall but she lost Megan Merrill, Jaylin Richardson, Kyra Richardson and Kyle Trejo to graduation. The Tigers cruised through the 1A playoffs as the No. 2 seed last fall, only dropping one set in the four matches won. That one loss was to top-seeded Mogollon in the first set of the state final but the team went on to hold off the Mustangs by scores of 22-25, 25-23, 27-25 and 25-21.

As mentioned before, the 1A playoffs moved away from using power ranking for seeding this year but the bracket will feature the top four teams from each of the four regions to make up the 16-team bracket. Though rankings will still be available for the 1A Conference, the numbers will be for information purposes only and the seeding for state will be determined by the conference itself.

Miller lost a lot of firepower from last year but Kayla Judd (5 kills), Goldi Merrill (10 assists), Jaelyn Goodman (4 kills) and Jasmine Pacheco (4 kills) came through in the win at Immaculate Heart.

Immaculate Heart fell to 0-4 on the year but the Knights still have a shot at the fourth spot from the region with Desert Christian (5-7, 2-0), San Simon (5-0, 1-0) and Duncan (4-3, 1-1) also ahead of them in the standings.

The 2A, 3A, 4A, 5A and 6A conferences all utilize the ranking system to some extent for the state playoffs.