Adam Hughes is an ASU Cronkite School of Journalism student assigned to cover Mountain View High School for AZPreps365.com.

Mountain View (9-8) fell to crosstown rival Mesa (14-3) in four sets (20-25,25-14,17-25, and 21-25).

The Toros came into this last game of the regular season looking for revenge from losing at Mesa in five sets on Oct. 21. Also, the team is trying to recover from losing to Red Mountain and Perry within the last week.

Senior Night meant the last high school regular season volleyball game for six Toro seniors who were trying to use that as inspiration to boost them to victory.

The Jackrabbits came into this game with confidence after they won the 6A East Valley region (9-0) Monday and swept Red Mountain at their last home game of the season.

“They are a really good team, but this is our fourth meeting,” Jackrabbits head coach Vee Hiapo said. “It's going to be fun playing them for the fourth time this season.”

Both teams battled whistle to whistle, putting on a show for the almost packed stands as Mountain View had 44 kills and 60 digs. Senior middle Aubrey Bellus led the team with 15 kills and junior libero Alayna Austin kept the ball alive with 20 digs. These two leaders kept the energy up and going helping the Toros stay in the fight.

“I know that I can help bring that energy, so my job is to get excited for others when they get kills and stuff,” Bellus said. “Always being an option is really important as a middle you always want to transition and always want to get to the ball to be an option for whoever the setter is.”

Neither team truly secured a solid lead until the end of the first set. One of the main problems being many missed serves on each side.

“In this match tonight, it was all about momentum whichever team had the momentum was going to ride it as far as they could,” Mountain View head coach Lee Golden said. “Sometimes when you are up and flowing and miss that serve and you side out and miss that serve too, it throws a wrench in it.”

Golden added that they love miss serves on the opposite side, but that it was a consistent problem for both teams halting momentum.

Each team pulled out all tricks and strategies as is common in rival games to put themselves in the right position to win. This approach caused many long rallies that led to each team trading points and with missed serves in the mix unable to hold on to the serve as well.

The second set Mountain View came out hot building a six-point lead into a 10-point lead. Mesa in the third, did not look like the same volleyball team that had won the first set. The Toros kept this 10-point lead to win the set.

After this though, the teams went back to battling every point capitalizing on any mistake the opposition made until Mesa won the last two sets ending the match.

Both teams are now looking ahead to the play-in next week to try and make a run in the 6A conference state playoffs.