No. 8 Desert Vista took advantage of Pinnacle's frigid start and  was in control the bulk of Tuesday night in knocking off the ninth-seeded Pioneers, 25-18, 23-25, 25-16 and 25-19 in a first-round match of the 6A state volleyball tournament at Desert Vista.

Desert Vista (23-15) advances to Thursday's quarterfinals where the Thunder travel to and face top-seed Perry at 6:30. Perry advanced by sweeping No. 16 Queen Creek, 3-0. Pinnacle, the Desert Valley Region champs, finished up 29-13.

There was no one dominating performance from Desert Vista. Only balance in its attack and solid play on defense. Senior outside Brooke Blutreich led in kills with 15, followed by senior middle Jennifer Soto (12 kills), sophomore middle Logan Blutreich (11 kills), senior outside Celestial Miller (10 kills) and senior middle Kamilah Anderson (7 kills).

Sophomore libero Kate Morin led the defense with 23 digs and Brooke Blutreich made her night a double-double with 14 digs.

"I liked our intensity and focus from the start," Desert Vista coach Molly West said. "They got back at us late in the second set. We got quiet. When we're quiet we don't play well. We picked it up again aftert that."

Using a handful of attack errors by Pinnacle to begin play in the opening set, Desert Vista had an easy time building a 7-1 lead. and never trailed in the set.

It was more of the same for nearly three-quarters of the second set. The Thunder led 17-11 and never trailed in the set until Pinnacle pecked away and grabbed a 22-21 lead on one of junior middle Madison Lounds team-high 18 kills. A Mounds block ended the set and evened the match at 1.

Sets three and four were tight early, but at or near the 15-point mark of each Desert Vista forced its will on the Pioneer and ended their season.

Pinnacle, which beat Desert Vista, 3-2, in the Thunder's season-opener the first week of September, had a tough night on the attack. Junior outside hitter Kierslynn Wright, the Pioneers leader in kills, finished with eight. No other Pinnacle player had more than four kills. The Pioneers relied more on its block to register points.