The spectacular season and win streak for West Ranch Wildcats boys’ volleyball has ended. However, even the loss in the SoCal Regional Division 3 championship doesn’t diminish how much history West Ranch made in 2024, the team’s coach said in reflection on the season.
“It’s going to take a while for it to really sink in, what was accomplished by this group of boys and by this coaching staff and by the school,” said Wildcats coach Brandon Johnson. “Yesterday while getting my tire changed, someone came up to me and said, ‘West Ranch volleyball, you guys just beat Valencia in something big.’ These boys made a name for themselves all throughout Santa Clarita, and they deserve all the praise and recognition that they’re going to be getting and all the awards that they’re going to be winning coming up. And I’m just proud that I was able to be a part of their story.”
The Wildcats fell in the Division 3 title match to the La Costa Canyon Mavericks on Saturday at Golden Valley. West Ranch was the first local team to ever reach the regional title match, let alone win a regional match.
La Costa took the match, 25-13, 25-20, 18-25 and 25-15, and was one of the most well-balanced teams West Ranch had faced all season. The Mavericks were the CIF San Diego Division 1 champions on top of SoCal Regional champs.
The Mavericks (18-19) passed just as well as they hit and blocked, making it difficult for the Wildcats (27-12) to zone in on any weakness. The bout between two strong teams featured plenty of rallies and highlight plays, the majority of which La Costa came on top of.
The Mavericks were led by senior Maddox Brandenburg with 12 kills, one block and an ace. Setter/opposite Carson Ball ran the offense while in the back row but also added 11 kills, one block and a match-high six aces.
Noah Douphner led West Ranch with 22 kills and five aces.
La Costa came out hot but slowed down in the second set, while West Ranch improved. Despite the speed bump, the Mavericks went up 2-0 and put the Wildcats in an elimination set for the first time in over five weeks.
The Wildcats weren’t deterred and fought for their lives in the third set, which featured numerous rallies of West Ranch diving and flying around to keep its season alive.
“I thought we played well in the second set but not quite good enough,” Johnson said. “The third set, we just knew our backs were up against the wall. We fought really hard and we put a good show on for the crowd and then just ran out steam at the end. We lost to a team that was a well deserving champion.”
Douphner added nine kills, matching the entire Mavericks offense in the third set.
West Ranch showed numerous sparks in the fourth set, including a huge solo block from senior Lucas Reuter, but La Costa Canyon was able to pull away and earn its first regional title.
Reuter finished with five kills and two blocks. Lucas Fico and Logan Sanchez both added six kills.
Johnson said going into the match that no matter what happens in the regional championship, there would be no winner or loser, citing how much each team has gained on the court this season while also commending his players for their CIF All-Academic award.
West Ranch has had success in its short history of boys’ volleyball but now joins Valencia and Hart as storied programs with CIF championships.
“What we wanted to be was a team that served tough, focused on passing and that were very efficient attacking the ball,” Johnson said. “What ended up happening was we had multiple guys step up and become really efficient attackers. That allowed everyone else to get a lot better on the team. We were a team this year and we succeeded because multiple people excelled and improved. We won as a team.”
Following last season’s 11-23-1 showing, many wrote off the Wildcats for this season, as they returned the bulk of that 2023 team. Johnson saw numerous players take big jumps in their games and step up to make the team into a CIF championship squad.
“I’m not sure that there were a lot of people after last year that would have thought that this was going to be the team that did it,” Johnson said. “Pretty early on in our first tournament, we found some success and it was apparent that we were not going to be the same team that we were last year. We were much better. We were much more cohesive, better all-around and it was just about the boys just believing in themselves and believing in their ability, growing as athletes and human beings.”
Freshman setter Stephen Choi was one new addition who immediately earned his starting spot on varsity alongside junior setter Jackson Manansala. Liberos Chris Song and Caleb Sperber shared a ton of playing time on the court and will both return as seniors in 2025.
West Ranch had some hiccups throughout the season but kept finding ways to win. Most members of the team cite the Karch Kiraly Invitational, when the team faced some of its toughest opponents all year, as when things started to click.
After taking an early loss to Division 1 powerhouse Mira Costa in the tournament, West Ranch sparked and began what would become its 13-match win streak that carried all the way to the regional championship.
The Wildcats will retain the bulk of their roster with just two starters graduating in 2024.
Both outside hitters, setters and liberos will return to West Ranch in 2025 as the program looks to get back to its winning ways in league, where it won 64-straight matches and six straight Foothill titles between 2016 and 2022.
