Mesa's Moises Durazo free kick heads toward Chandler keeper Bryan Bautista. (AzPreps365 photo)

#14 Mesa High gave #3 Chandler something to think about last week when the teams played to a 2-2 tie in their regular season finale. But Mesa's edge over Chandler was a bit longer than that.

"They got our attention, but they had it already." Chandler coach Sasha Hunter said. "They beat us last year 3-2 and the year after we won state (2015) 5-0. It's redemption. It's like (Mesa coach) TJ (Hagen) had a curse on us or something."

Josue Saenz scored in the 12th minute and Briant Sanchez put the match away with an insurance goal in the 72 minute on Wednesday night as Chandler topped Mesa, 2-0, in a 6A first-round encounter at Austin Field. It's Chandler's first playoff victory since 2015 when it ran the table on the way to its first boys soccer crown. Mesa, the East Valley Region champs, closed its campaign 11-6-3.

Chandler takes an 18-0-5 mark to the quarterfinals on Saturday where it will host #6 Sunnyside, a 1-0 winner over #11 Desert Mountain in another first-round match  Game time is 2 p.m. at Chandler High.

Chandler definitely came out with a fire in its belly, quicker and more aggressive than Mesa. The 1-0 lead came courtesty of Saenz, a sophomore, thrid goal of the season. Saenz entered the game no more than two minutes earlier as a sub for injured senior Jonathan Ortiz. The assist went to junior Solomon Liddell, his seventh of the year.

"We defiinitely didn't play our best first half of the season," Hagen said. "I  don't know what it was. If we weren't readyor if it was Chandler was more intense....

"The second half we challenged our guys character. We were only down 1-0 and we were up 1-0 at half the last time we played them We were a lot more offensive in the second half."

Mesa had a number of shots in the second half and that ramped up as time grew shorter. Leading scorer Moises Durazo had a free kick snared at the top of the goal by Chandler keeper Bryan Bautista in the 67th minute and Bautista made a diving save to deflect another Durazo shot in the 68th minute.

With Mesa pulling up defenders, Chandler tallied an insurance goal with eight minutes left as senior Briant Sanchez manuevered along the left boundary and fired a winner for the 2-0 final. Sanchez goal was also just his third of the season.