Once again Eastview made quick work of its opponent.

This time, the Lightning cruised past Hopkins 25-17, 25-12, 25-19 in a state boys’ volleyball quarterfinal Tuesday.

Jay Thammavongsa had 15 kills, and Brice Dehnel 27 assists for the second-seeded Lightning (28-3), who hae won via sweep in 25 of their 31 matches this season.

“We get pushed a lot in practice. Our bench is constantly making us get better, making us work harder. That prepares us for all our opponents, but also the tougher ones where we have to think more and adjust more … and make the game easier on ourselves,” said Colin Nathan, a middle blocker and opposite hitter.

No. 2 Eastview will face No. 3 Rogers in a Wednesday semifinal. The Royals needed five sets to take down sixth-seeded St. Paul Central.

Hopkins (17-9) is the No. 7 seed, but Eastview coach Ryan Dehnel would not let his team overlook the Royals, especially after the Lightning watched large parts of the Rogers win.

“We knew coming in that if we could execute, we had a great chance to win. But we also knew that if we fell asleep at all, they were good enough and passionate enough that they were going to stick it to us,” Dehnel said. “We’ve got to stay steady and execute no matter what.”

Eastview had a 16-3 run in the second set when Hopkins was forced into some lineup changes due to a senior captain getting with a bloody nose.

The Lightning finished the match with a .395 attack percentage.

“The whole season it’s been that we have to execute. It doesn’t matter who we play. … We have to make sure we play our game,” said outside hitter Owen Kunisaki.

Hopkins stayed within two points for most of the third set.

“We’ve got a lot of resolve,” said Royals outside hitter Joseph Rinaldi. “We’ve had a lot of games where we started down and slowly caught back up. I think we were kind of waiting for that to happen, but it just didn’t.”

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