The scores were relatively close Tuesday night as two top-10 teams from Division III collided, but the overall play wasn't reflected by the scoreboard.

Host Valley Christian rarely trailed the entire evening and its consistency provided it a sweep of Florence, 25-22, 25-20, 25-22, in a D-III Section V-III match. Florence and Valley Christian still had an outside chance at their section title, but with Chandler Prep's 3-0 win over Poston Butte on Tuesday, the race is down to Chandler Prep, Valley Christian and Horizon Honors.

Chandler Prep is 9-1 in the section and done with section play. Valley Christian and Horizon Honors are 8-1 and Florence 7-2. If Horizon Honors defeats Valley Christian on Thursday, it will tie Chandler Prep for the top spot at 9-1. Horizon Honors would own the tie-breaker in that scenario. If Valley Christian defeats Horizon Honors, VC and Chandler Prep tie with Chandler Prep owning the tiebreaker.

Valley Christian, No. 8 in the most recent power rankings, notched its 20th win of the year against 7 losses and improved to 8-1 in its section, easily the toughest top to bottom in D-III.  Florence, No. 4 in the power rankings and one of the hottest teams in the division, saw its 16-match winning streak end. The Gophers won their invitational this past weekend, beating section rival Horizon Honors and the top-team in D-III power rankings -- Parker -- twice. The Gophers are now 33-6 overall.

"Our serve-receive was good and we passed well," Valley Christian coach Lisa Gross said. "We were able to run our offense like we like. We've had a lot of injuries, but we've worked to be flexible. We played a solid match."

Valley Christian came at Florence from all angles offensively with sophomore outside Courtney Dyer leading with 17 kills. Sophomore hitter  Cici Collins (10 kills) and sophomore middle Allyssa Wissinger (7 kills) were effective complements. The areas VC was strongest in Tuesday were Florence's weak points

"We were totally out of system," Florence coach Casey Simon said. "They served us tough, and passed well. We had trouble getting our offense going.

"This is a tough place to play. They have big crowds, and we brought some tof our own for support. But you have to show up and play. We didn't play well tonight, and they did."

Valley was strong on the attack most of the first set and led by as much as five points. A run of five successive points highlighted by four straight kills by Collins and Megan Timmer put the Trojans in control. Florence closed to within 22-21, but a service error, hitting error and four hits on set point put VC up 1-0.

VC was better the second set, running up a 16-8 lead. The Trojans collected 15 kills in the set and closed on a tip by Timmer. VC also had three aces in the set.

The final set started fine for Florence with a 4-1 lead, led by their top two attackers Alexis Villalobos and Kenzie DeVries. VC turned that around quickly taking the lead 9-6 thanks to a run that included five aces. The match ended with Wissinger alone at the net for an easy kill.