Learning how and being able to finish. That's part of the reason Corona del Sol's boys volleyball team has been so successful this season.

The host Aztecs played the best down the stretch in the first and third games Saturday afternoon and those victories helped add up to a sweep of defending big-school champion Mesa Mountain View, 25-21, 25-20, 25-22 in the round of 16 at the Division I state tournament at Corona del Sol High School.

"This year has been different than other years when we would start fast and slow down at the end," Corona del Sol coach Brynne Evans said. "When it's been close now, we're finishing and that's a nice change."

The second-seeded Aztecs now head to the quarterfinals on Tuesday May 8 where they will face No. 10 Highland, which defeated No. 23 Tucson High and No. 7 Catalina Foothills in Tucson on Saturday. Game time will be 7 p.m. at Corona del Sol.

Corona del Sol did not lose a power-point match this season and capped its invitational slate with a win on April 28 at Mesa High's Invite. Corona del Sol had been eliminated in the first round of state each of the last two seasons.

Corona (30-3) grabbed  the early momentum with the game-one victory by overcoming a 19-18 deficit.  Mountain View made three straight hitting errors to turn game in the Aztecs' favor. A  couple of kills from Blake Pendleton helped close out the game.

Mountain View (22-11) didn't play well late in game one and that continued through the first third of game two as Corona built a 9-2 lead. Corona controlled game two, but saw its lead dwindle to 20-17. Senior outside hitter Alex Davis, who lead Corona with 10 kills, used one of those to wrap up the second game.

Mountain View had a much better start in the third game and led most of it until Corona managed to tie it a final time at 17. Corona spread the wealth to close out the match, getting a stuff block from Matthew Seall and kills from Davis, Nic Plott and the match-ender from Sean Hughes.

Mountain View, which was seeded No. 18, knocked off No. 15 Cienega earlier in the afternoon, 25-7, 25-15, 25-22.  The Toros didn't play with the consistency needed to beat Corona and were hurt badly by a number of misserves in every game -- five in game one, four in gameand  two with the match on the line in the final eight points of game three. Corona had  three misserves in the first two games

"Misserves are like missing free throws in basketball," Evans said. "We had a couple, but not as many. I think we were pretty consistent when  we had to be at the end of games."

Setter Jake Nuneviller had 21 assists and six blocks for Corona and Seall added five blocks. Libero Charlie Hualde had 11 digs. Leading Mountain View in kills unofficially was  Mark Soelberg with eight and Payton Dastrup with six.

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