There is a nice balance in the New City Nissan Girls Volleyball Division II State Championships.

It has to do with the arrangement of the 12-team bracket.

The tournament starts tonight with first-round matches at Radford and McKinley. Matches will be played at both sites the first three days and the final day will be held at McKinley.

Four Neighbor Island teams — Waimea vs. Hawai'i Prep; Moloka'i vs. Honoka'a — will open play in the Radford bracket tonight, and the winners will face O'ahu teams in tomorrow's quarterfinals.

It's the opposite in the McKinley bracket, where four O'ahu teams — University High vs. Castle; Word of Life vs. McKinley — will play tonight and face Neighbor Island teams in the quarterfinals.

The four seeded teams are league champions and received first-round byes.

No. 1 Hawai'i Baptist and No. 4 Farrington are in the Radford bracket, while No. 2 Seabury Hall and No. 3 Hilo were placed in the McKinley bracket.

This is the third Division II state tournament. Interscholastic League of Honolulu teams have won the previous two — Saint Francis in 2005 and Sacred Hearts in 2006.

"There are so many good teams in the tournament. We don't look at ourselves as the favorite," said Hawai'i Baptist coach Myles Shioji. "We'll just play hard and hopefully things will take care of themselves."

Hawai'i Baptist (14-4) won the ILH regular season and postseason tournament for its first overall ILH title in history. All of the Eagles' losses came to ILH DI teams, three of which qualified for the DI state tournament.

Despite this, Shioji was still surprised his team was awarded the top seed.

"We thought Seabury Hall would get it," he said. "I guess it's just the strength of our league."

Shioji pointed out Seabury Hall (12-0) beat Moloka'i twice during the Maui Interscholastic League season, and Moloka'i swept Hawai'i Baptist in the preseason.

The most intriguing first-round matchup tonight will take place in the McKinley bracket, where ILH runner-up Word of Life will play O'ahu Interscholastic Association runner-up McKinley.

Both teams lost in their respective league tournament finals.

Word of Life (12-6) has one of the state's top hitters in Chanteal Satele. McKinley (14-2) won the OIA White regular-season title.

"We had expected going into the state tournament everybody would be tough," said Word of Life coach Lee Ann Satele. Whoever we play will be a tough game. We'll prepare the best we can and play the best we can play."

McKinley coach Chad Giesseman was surprised at his team's first-round pairing with Word of Life.

"I wasn't too happy with that draw," he said. "It surprised me a bit. We'll make do with what we have. I told the team in order to be state champions we have to beat the best teams."

Giesseman added he'll make a couple of changes to his starting lineup.

Sophomore Ashley Gravely will start at setter and junior Jorina Faletoi will open at outside hitter.

"I was looking at making changes toward the end of the regular season when our offense was sputtering," Giesseman said.

Reach Kyle Sakamoto at ksakamoto@honoluluadvertiser.com.