The Marcos de Niza volleyball team opened region play Monday night with a five-set win over Mesquite.  

The Padres jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the match, beating the Wildcats 25-20 and 25-13.  However, the Wildcats came back firing back to win the next two sets 23-25 and 24-26 to force a fifth set.  

“We kind of dropped our level of play,” Padres senior Katy Johnson said. “Just because we beat them the first two sets, didn’t mean we were guaranteed to win. We just had to keep fighting until the very last point, until we won.”

In the fifth set, the Padres were able to jump out to a 9-4 lead and did not let up.  They ended up winning 15-11 from a kill on game point by senior Elyse Olson, who finished the match with 11 kills.

Head coach Mel Yee said the Padres just needed to limit their errors in the fifth set after giving Mesquite numerous crucial points in the fourth set from self-created errors. 

Johnson was able to make her presence felt in the critical fifth set with three kills and two aces.  She had 13 total kills for the Padres.  Sophomore Hailey White finished with 22 kills and three blocks, while senior Jenifer Lauer notched 44 assists and 10 kills.

This is the rfist year Mesquite and Marcos de Niza are in the same region forr volleyball. “It felt really nice to beat them,” Lauer said.  “It just shows people we are strong competitors.” 

The Padres finished 7-1 in region play last year. Johnson believes this team is built for another run like that this season. 

“We’ve played a lot of matches in the past few days,” Yee said. “To come out and win a five-set match to start off region play is pretty cool.”

The Padres' next natch is at 6 p.m. Thursday at Saguaro.