Turns out, Savannah Davis is the most dominant shot blocker in the family.

The Peoria resident started her Deer Valley career as Bryce Davis’ little sister. But as Savannah leads her team in her senior year, the 6-2 middle blocker is forcing more volleyball opponents to change their offense around the net than even her 6-6 brother did while leading the Skyhawks to the 2018 state 5A basketball finals.

She passed the 350 career block mark earlier in October So far this season her blocks per set average is down for a simple reason — all but the best volleyball teams in the state are simply avoiding attacks anywhere in her zip code.

“She’s such a force offensively and defensively and I think teams try to get around her. I’ve had a good chance to watch her grow up. Now she’s all about the team,” Deer Valley coach Jackie Wallace said.

Davis said she has seen the entire team mature in the last season. The 2018 Skyhawks were very young, with one senior, three juniors, six sophomores and a freshman in the regular rotation.

Talent was never a question, but consistency and focus were. For example Deer Valley took a 2-1 lead against two-time defending state champion Salpointe Catholic in the 4A quarterfinal in Tucson but could not finish off the upset.

“Last year we had a lot of young girls on the team, so that was hard mentally to finish really tight games. People would get in their heads and get bad attitudes. Now I feel like we’re so close and have such a stronger mentality. We’re going to be able to close out because we have that mentality,” Davis said.

This team is reminding Davis of the Deer Valley squads she watched while in junior high, when volleyball became her sport. Davis said her first year with Club Arrowhead hooked her at age 13.

She watched Wallace’s team and got to know the daughter of her brother’s basketball coach, as well as the Skyhawks’ middle blocker at the time.

“I knew Kobie (Dunn) and Ciara (Merrifield) was here. And it was high level volleyball,” Davis said. “I liked the environment and coaches.”

The 2016 team had nine seniors and she was the only freshman on the roster. Davis saw spot duty, rotating in occasionally as a blocking specialist.

Deer Valley was in a very deep 5A conference at the time and had to battle just to make the playoffs. But Davis said she gained a lot.

“I didn’t see a lot of playing time. But I learned from those seniors so it was a good experience,” Davis said. Wallace quickly knew what she had, and wanted Davis to get varsity experience as a freshman so she could slide into the starting middle blocker role as a sophomore.

“Her freshman year when she came, she was in my systos class all year. As soon as we saw her and saw her play it was like a given. We knew she was going to be huge for us and has been all four years,” Wallace said.

In her sophomore year, the team meshed well. Seniors Kendall Coleman,Annie Harte and Kaley Hosler led as sophomores Davis and Maddison Clark