When a team starts piling up wins it has to be doing a lot of things right. That's Desert Vista softball at present.

The Thunder didn't wail on the ball Wednesday, but took advantage of two Chandler miscues to record a 2-1 win in a Division I game at Chandler High between teams in the top 10 of the current power-point rankings when the day began..

Desert Vista (15-8, 10-3 power-point games) has racked up eight consecutive victories since finishing 3-4 in the Desert Mountain Invitational in late March. If you do the math the Thunder were under .500 before their recent run of wins.

"We are on a good roll," Desert Vista coach Chris Crowl said. "Our pitching with Danny Block has taken us to new levels. That's been the catalyst. We've hit the ball and played good defense, too. All three things coming together at the same time. Today it was pitching and defense and taking advantage of mistakes that was the difference."

Block and Chandler's Kristal Whiteside matched one another pitch for pitch. Both went the distance. Block allowed four hits, walked two and struck out six. Whiteside, pitching for the first time in almost six weeks after recovering from a hamstring injury, gave up five hits, issued no walks and fanned three. But two Chandler errors led to Desert Vista's runs -- one in the fourth and one in the sixth.

Desert Vista catcher Alyssa Cerminara reached on both errors. She scored on a two-out single in the fourth by Madison Bailey for a 1-0 lead.

After Chandler tied the game in the bottom of the fourth on a solo homer to center by catcher Jordan Blakesley, Desert Vista got the break it needed on a controversial play. Thunder leadoff hitter Rebecca Perez was hit by a pitch to begin the sixth and sacrificed to second. Cerminara followed and slapped a ground ball at Chandler first baseman Alexus Ybarra. Ybarra bobbled the ball momentarlly, but recovered in time to apply a tag to Cerminara. Cerminara jarred the ball loose and was safe. Perez continued around third while the ball was retrieved and headed for home, beating the relay for the decisive run.

Chandler coach Kim Higginbotham contested the call, contending Cerminara extended her arms to foil tag.

"I argued it for safety reasons and that you can't extend your arms on a play like that " Higginbotham said. "The umpire said he didn't think it was malicious, but that doesn't matter. Your aren't supposed to be able to extend your arms. It was a turning point."

Chandler (14-10-1, 9-4 ppg) has dropped three of its last four games scoring just six runs in those contests. The Wolves are still in good position to qualify for postseason, but .....

"The good thing about today was Kristal's outing, she pitched well," Higginbotham said. "We didn't hit and didn't play defense behind her. I told the girls we can't keeping limping to the fiinish. We have to turn it around."