Robert Neill of Desert Mountain slides back into first as Nic Nedrow of Mountain View tries to tag him out Tuesday afternoon during the 5A-I state baseball tournament game held at Tempe Diablo Stadium.

Lisa Olson, Tribune

Hitting is what Scottsdale Desert Mountain’s baseball team does best. Mesa Mountain View bore witness and can testify.

SLIDESHOW: See action from the game

Desert Mountain pounded out 17 hits in a 14-8 victory against the No. 1-seed Toros on Tuesday at Tempe Diablo Stadium, and the Wolves are bound for the 5A Division I state semifinals.

Desert Mountain (23-11) gets at least one crack (possibly two) at Chandler Hamilton on Thursday afternoon at Diablo.

Mountain View (26-6) saw its season end, but not before a near-comeback.

The Toros scored eight runs with Wolves’ ace Brad Douthit on the hill, but Mountain View’s strengths (pitching and defense) struggled.

“These kids have done a great job, and (26-6) is awesome work,” Toros coach Mike Thiel said. “We ran into a couple teams which hit the heck out of the ball and we couldn’t stop them. I’m proud of us for scoring eight runs against someone that good, we just couldn’t get (the deficit) to stop.”

These teams locked in an eternal struggle last week in the state tournament before Mountain View won in 11 innings.

This time, however, there was no drama. The Wolves took advantage of a couple Toro miscues to bat around the order and put up five runs in the first inning.

Mountain View put up a fight early. The Toros got a run in the first, then pounced on a Desert Mountain fielding error and scored four more in the second behind RBI hits from Matt Shannon and Russ Tuemmler.

It wasn’t enough. Desert Mountain scored in every inning except the sixth. Each starter had a hit, and either knocked in or scored a run.

The Wolves’ 3-4-5 hitters combined for six hits, seven runs (five by Lars Liguori) and five RBIs. The bottom three had seven hits and five RBIs altogether.

“We’ve got solid guys from one through nine,” Wolves coach Bryan Rice said. “There’s not really a break.”

Desert Mountain got a few Tuesday, but now the rest of its pitching staff must hold up against the hottest team in the tournament, and against a Huskies squad that beat the Wolves in late March.

What’s a team to do?

“I don’t know yet,” Rice said, “but we’ll show up.”