It didn't start out as a slugfest, but it ended up that way.

Red Mountain, which lost its only power-point game of the season to Gilbert in late February, erupted for 11 runs and 16 hits in the final three innings to hand Gilbert its first power-point loss, 12-5, in a Division I softball game at Gilbert High.

Red Mountain (20-3 overall, 8-1 power-point games) avenged a 12-6 extra inning loss with a six-run, fifth inning rally snapping a 1-1 tie. Gilbert dropped to 21-3, 10-1 ppg. as the teams began the final month of the regular season. Red Mountain amassed 18 hits and every hitter in its lineup had at least one hit.

"This was a good team win, especially beating a team that hadn't lost a power-point game yet," Red Mountain coach Rich Hamilton said. We played our best overall game last game against Highland (a 16-0 win). I wanted to see if we could take the momentum from that game to this one....

"We had a 1-0 lead for awhile and I would have taken a 1-0 win. We kept plugging away. We hit too many fly balls early. Then once we started squaring it up, the hits came and the runs came."

Ultimately, it shouldn't have been a surprise the game ended up a slugfest. Both teams stepped on the field averaging just less than 10 runs per game over 20-plus games each. Freshman Lynsey Duncan matched up with Red Mountain senior Siera Phiilips and it was 1-1 after four. Red Mountain had two hits to that point; Gilbert had five.

The start of the fifth took a strange turn as both teams looked like they were taking batting practice. The top three hitters in Red Mountain's lineup ruled the day -- Haley Culley, Payton Kornfeind and Phillips. They combined for 10 hits in 15 at-bats, scored six runs and drove in six. Culley's RBI single broke the 1-1 tie, Kornfeind ripped a two-run single and Phillips doubled in a run to highlight the fifth. Red Mountain collected seven hits in the inning and the Tigers were defenseless to stop any of them.

"They really started hitting it and put them where they needed to," Gilbert coach Shaundra Gutierrez said. "I don't see anyone in our section going unbeaten. Ours is very tough. If you're going to lose one, it's not bad to lose to Red Mountain."

In Gilbert's win over Red Mountain six weeks ago, the Mountain Lions Bre Macha took the loss going the distance (nine innings). Hamilton opted to go with Phillips this time.

"Some people think we'll always go with Bre in big games," Hamilton said. "That's not the case. I'll put Siera in there against anybody. I have that confidence in her."

Macha is 8-2 this season and Phillips, with the win Tuesday, improved to 8-0. Phillips limited Gilbert to one run and five hits through five innings. The Tigers got their bats going in the final two innings -- four runs and seven hits-- but too little, too late.

Red Mountain's Jordan Beck had the game's only home run, a two-run shot in the seventh. Gilbert, which collected 12 hits, had three from Alex Astorga and two from Elysia Mesa. Mesa and Emma Ocker drove in two runs apiece for the Tigers.