No. 2 Cienega defeated No. 3 Mountain View 3-0 Tuesday night on the road to take control of the 5A Southern Region with six matches left in the regular season. The Bobcats (26-4) are now 10-1 in ranking matches with the 3-2 loss coming at No. 4 Campo Verde (12-7) way back on March 11. The Bobcats also lost to No. 1 Ironwood (23-5) in February during invitational play but those matches were six weeks ago and the only possible rematches will have to take place in the state tournament slated to start May 8.

Mountain View (19-10) is still in the hunt for a favorable seed for state down the stretch. The Mountain Lions played Cienega tight in the three sets but the Bobcats tended to pull away late, especially in the third set where the score was tied 16-16 but then Cienega went on a 9-1 run to close it out 25-17. The Bobcats also took the first 25-17 and the second set also went 25-17.

Cienega will host No. 25 Desert View (5-7) on Thursday and Mountain View will travel to No. 15 Buena (5-5) on the same night.

Cienega setter Caiden Mott finished with 38 assists to give him over 700 on the year. Mott has over 3,000 assists in his high school career and that number is believed to be a state record. His brother McLain graduated in 2017 with 2,866 assists. His other brother Carson ended his career with 1,720 assists and his sister McKenzie had 753. The Mott siblings have combined for over 9,300 assists. Carson is a former manager for the University of Arizona volleyball team and is currently a graduate assistant for Kentucky.