The boys volleyball playoff picture in the Class 5A Mountain League became clearer Tuesday night when Palo Verde pulled out a win over Arbor View.

Coming into the game, the teams were tied for second. With Palo Verde’s 25-19, 25-20, 21-25, 25-22 home win, the Panthers, No. 4 in the Review-Journal’s 5A rankings, are now in control of the No. 2 seed in the league.

“We can still earn a home playoff game, which would be big because we don’t have a lot of home games left,” Palo Verde coach Phil Clarke said.

Not only did Palo Verde (12-8, 5-3), the defending 5A state champion, claim sole possession of second place, but the Panthers also got revenge after being swept by No. 3 Arbor View (17-16, 4-4) earlier in the season.

Clarke attributed better serving and cleaner play as the biggest differences between the previous game and Tuesday.

“In the first game, there were a lot of unforced errors and service errors. We still had them in this game, but the total number was down,” Clarke said. “I’m glad we were able to finish this one and put ourselves in a good spot going forward.”

Palo Verde cruised through the first two sets. The Panthers didn’t trail by more than a point in either set and sealed both wins with a key 7-3 run.

The offensive output was spread evenly among the Panthers, with four players recording at least three kills in either of the first two sets.

Senior Peter Castor led the way with three kills in both sets and finished with eight.

Senior Dylan Ho was a standout all game. After recording five kills in the first three sets, the outside hitter came up big with four kills in the fourth set to finish with nine.

The offensive attack slowed down in the third set as Palo Verde showed glimpses of its earlier match against Arbor View with 11 unforced errors.

However, the mistakes were quickly cleaned up in the fourth, as Palo Verde jumped out to a 12-6 lead.

Arbor View later scored four straight points to cut the lead to four, but it wasn’t enough to force a fifth set.