There appears to be a bit of a mystery as to how the state volleyball tournaments will take place this year. There are region champions, a region tournament, play-in matches, team rankings, automatic bids and at-large bids.

 

1: There are two groupings of conferences with 6A, 5A and 2A grouped together and 4A, 3A and 1A grouped together.

 

2: All six conferences will have a 16-team bracket – sort of. More on that later.

 

3: The top team in each region will get an automatic playoff bid but those teams will still be seeded according to rank. The region champions will not be given one of the top eight seeds.

 

4: The 6A Southern Region (Tucson, Sunnyside, Rincon, San Luis, Kofa and Cibola) will have a Region Tournament to decide region champion.

 

5: Region champions ranked outside of the top 16 (or 24, see No. 6 below) can and will bump other teams out of the playoffs.

 

6: For 6A, 5A and 2A, teams ranked 1-8 will move directly to the state tournament while teams ranked 9-24 will face each other in a play-in tournament.

 

Conference Play-In Tournament Schedule

6A: Sat., Oct. 29, 2016, 1 p.m., High Seed

5A: Thu., Oct. 27, 2016, 6 p.m., High Seed

2A: Sat., Oct. 29, 2016, 5 p.m., High Seed

 

7: The winners of the matches between 9-24 will join the teams ranked 1-8 in the state tournament and then seeding of those 16 teams will be based on ranking.  

 

8: There will be NO play-in tournament for the 4A, 3A and 1A conferences. The top 16 will move to the state tournament with seedings based on rankings.

 

9: All conference championships will be held in the Phoenix area NOT Prescott.

 

10: More HERE.