Arcadia was in uncharted territory Monday night playing in its first-ever girls volleyball state title match. The waters were a bit too brisk to navigate with three-time defending champ Sunnyslope as the Titans' opposition.

Sunnyslope one a tight first game and controlled the next two to claim its four consecutive title, downing Arcadia, 28-26, 25-20. 25-21 in the Division II championship at Grand Canyon University arena.

Sunnyslope, an offensive juggernaut  in recent title years winning titles, needed defense to stay at the top. That was particularly the case against Arcadia (31-5)  and its hitting trio of Izzy Miller, Stacey Benton and Jensen Barton.

"Our defense had to step up, and they did," Sunnyslope coach Amber LeTarte said, "(Libero) Maeghan (Goldman) is so calm back there. She had t he cross court covered. They had the type of  team we had to be good defensively against."

Goldman collected 24 digs and senior teammate Trianna Henry added 22. Henry also chipped in with 13 kills and another senior Logan Rae had 12 .

Sunnyslope (34-10) had three game points with a one-point difference in the first set and finally closed it out on one of Andi Lowrance's match-high 15 kills. Lowrance ended the other two games with a kill and block and finished her career part of three state title teams for the Vikings in their current run. Sunnyslope also had won state titles in five of the last six seasons.

"I told the girls I was a little nervous with that first game," LeTarte said,. "I  knew Arcadia had been playing very well and has gotten better and better as the season's gone on."

Arcadia's downfall was intermittent inconsistency, which crept up too much in the title match.

"I'm so proud of these girls," Arcadia coach Josh Olshan said. "They won 31 games which is a school record and got to the state final for the first time in school history. ....When we are playing well, we're hard to beat. Tonight we struggled more than we were at our best."

Sunnyslope won two regular -season power-point matches against Arcadia, winning 3-0 and 3-2. Arcadia was only a couple points away from sweeping Sunnyslope in the second meeting before the Vikings won the last three in a row. Letarte remembered that and was respectul of the Titans.

Lowrance liked the feeling of the state title wins, something that never gets old if you're fortunate to be a part of it.

"We had to come out and be strong," Lowrance said. "We had to play our hearts out. The other teams were going to give us all they had. I think we did come out and play our hearts out."

Izzy Miller led Arcadia with 12 kills, Benton had six and libero Aubrey Alianza had 20 digs.