Section 7’s Girls Weekend got started Friday at its new venue, the Arizona Athletic Grounds in Mesa.

Sixteen courts ensured that no team would be left waiting to compete for too long, and once the second set of matches rolled around, all eyes were on Court 1 for Etiwanda (CA) vs. the Desert Vista Thunder (AZ).

Etiwanda finished last season ranked third in the nation by MaxPreps. The group backed that up against the Thunder, ultimately winning 85-68.

The Eagles took a commanding 14-0 lead early on. Sophomore Andrea Alamo drew first blood with a beautifully placed three, and a few other contributors such as Chastity Rice built on the momentum from there.

The Thunder began to find some life on offense in the second half, largely thanks to Zaire “Cherri” Hatter, who led all Arizona freshmen in scoring last year. Hatter topped the stat sheet in scoring this game as well with 21 points, but the Eagles still managed to keep the Thunder in a daze defensively throughout the entire contest.

Desert Vista head coach Erin O’Bryan plans to work on improving the team’s consistency on defense moving forward.

“Against a team like that, if you are not where you need to be, you're not disciplined on defense and contest everything - every pass, every catch, every rebound, every shot - they’re gonna take advantage,” O’Bryan said. “They got too many easy baskets, that was a big difference.”

One of the state’s next top incoming freshman, Desert Vista’s Kolbi Brooks, scored 18 points and believes her team is unstoppable if they can stay in rhythm from start to finish.

“I don't think anybody can beat us when we're at our best, we just gotta get there quicker,” Brooks said. “We can't wait till the second half to start playing our game, we gotta get there as soon as we get out there on that court.”

Though Desert Vista’s first matchup ended in a loss, O’Bryan couldn’t be more grateful for her team’s chance to compete in the Girls Weekend.

“Oh, it’s a huge opportunity,” O’Bryan said. “We want to know what it's like to go through the best teams. If we want to win a state championship, we have to beat the best teams.”

An hour earlier, the Gilbert Highland Hawks and Tucson Flowing Wells Caballeros faced off on the opposite side of the facility.

Flowing Wells kept themselves in the game through most of the first period, and the score was 30-20 in Highland’s favor by halftime.

In the second half, the Hawks didn’t allow the Caballeros any room to breathe on offense and left satisfied with a 62-24 victory.

Sophomore Bailey Williams was the obvious standout , matching the 24 points that Flowing Wells put up.

Highland’s assistant coach, Jamie Petrie, seemed glad to see his roster get experience during the offseason.

“I always think summer's really important just for us to get the extra game reps,” Petrie said. “We're a pretty young group. We brought back everybody, we had no seniors last year, and we're adding a couple of nice freshmen. There's gonna be bumps in the road with a young team, but we're excited for the future and we think it's gonna be a really good year.”

Later on, Dixie (Utah) and the Nogales Apaches (AZ) met for a low-scoring showdown. The Dixie Flyers took it 47-29.

Nogales was able to even the score at 12-12 with a few minutes left in the first period, but Dixie responded quickly, with the Flyers leading 29-18 at the half.

The Apaches opened up the second period aggressively, which helped them regain some momentum, but it was too little too late against the Flyers and their height advantage.

Dixie freshman Izzy Hollingshead led the game in scoring with 14 points.

Nogales head coach Yahaira Sanchez’s main priority is getting her team on the same page after losing seven seniors at the end of last season.

“Our transition defense was really bad, and we didn’t crash the boards very well,” Sanchez said. “We’re very small, so I need all five of them in there trying to rebound the ball. They are a lot bigger than us, but we didn’t finish well on our easy opportunities.”