The 5A San Tan Region is going to take some getting used to for everyone in it this season. Only Campo Verde and Williams Field competed in 5A and the San Tan last year. Two of the schools new to the region -- Gilbert and Casteel - faced off in the region opener Tuesday and the school up from 3A a year ago edged the team down from 6A.

Casteel grabbed the lead in each of the third and fourth sets and never trailed in both pulling off a 3-1 victory at The Jungle. Scores were 27-25, 17, 25, 25-22, 25-22.

Casteel coach Jeff Bader is no stranger to coaching the sport, athough most of his time has been spent mentoring the guys at other stops. The Colts competed in invitationals the past two weekends and entered play Tuesday 5-16. They played much better Tuesday than their record indicates and it couldn't have come at a better time with the game counting toward power-ranking and in the region standings.

What stood out for Bader in this match was the play and return of setter, junior Taylor Tepe, back in the lineup after missing two weeks from injury. Tepe,in her third year on varsity, piled up 49 assists and spread the wealth to hitters led by senior middle Lauren Hase (12 kills and 3 blocks) and sophomore outside Kendall Varney (10 kills).Defensively libero Kaili Patterson checked in with 18 digs.Gilbert was led on the attack unofficially by junior middle Elizabeth Toiavao with 14 kills and senior Katana Montford with 13 kills.

"We've been missing Taylor since the first couple matches (three)," Bader said. "We've had a freshman (Maila Coles) filling in, and and she has gotten better and better as Taylor's been out. ....This team comes at you full bore. We never have a passive swing."

Casteel is 6-16 overall and 3-4 in power ranking matches -- and of course 1-0 in region. Gilbert, which played its best volleyball of the season this past weekend at the Westwood Tournament of Champions in qualifying for the Gold Bracket, fell to 11-11, 3-4 prm. Gilbert coach Joe Hesse felt his team took a step back from an encouraging weekend in this loss. There won't be time to work on some of the errors that plagued the Tigers periodically as Gilbert plays two more region games Wednesday at Williams Field and Thursday at Campo Verde.

Gilbert did rebound nicely in the second set to even the match after a tough loss in the opener. All the momentum gained from that set vanished and didn't return as the Tigers faced an uphill battle in the match's final two sets.

Casteel led in the fourth set 9-3 and later 17-12. Gllbert made pushes forging a tie at 19 after a Casteel error. Casteel ran off a 3-0 run with kills by Sammie Schmid and Hase keying the run. The Tigers couldn't make up the ground with a hitting error, service error and net violation blunting a final rally. Varney finished the match with her 10th kill.