West Ranch volleyball is on to the CIF SoCal Regional semifinals after winning its exciting opening match Tuesday.
There are no cake walks in the tournament as the Division 4 Southern Section champ Wildcats bested the Division 5 champion Sage Hill Lightning in four sets.
West Ranch won the regional opener, 25-14, 19-25, 25-17, 25-18.
The Wildcats’ (26-11) main assignment was to slow down Lightning outside hitter Jackson Cryst, who made his presence felt all night.
Cryst took over the match in the second set, when the Lightning (26-9) jumped well ahead of the Wildcats, completely flipping the script of the lopsided first set.
“They just have an outstanding player on their court,” said Cats coach Brandon Johnson, “that blocks very well, hits very well and plays very good defense. And it took some time for the boys to adjust to that. The beautiful thing is it’s a team game and we had a lot of different people step up tonight and that’s what pushed us.”
Cryst brought in nearly every point for Sage Hill early and finished the set with 12 of his match-high 28 kills and two of his seven blocks. The Lightning led 9-1 before the Cats found life and started crawling back into the game.
“One team played, we just didn’t play at the same level the whole game,” Johnson said. “They’re high school athletes and they have emotions and they have things going on in their lives. It’s hard to maintain a good strong positive presence on the court and a good hard work ethic all game long. Our level of play dropped early in set two, our level play did not drop the whole entire set. The problem is we got so far behind. It was really hard for us to fight back.”
West Ranch won the first game with ease but Sage Hill returned the favor in the second to even the match at 1-1.
The Cats had to come out with a new energy but, after winning a CIF Southern Section division title, motivation can be tough for most teams. However, Johnson’s Wildcats still showed they wanted to keep their season alive.
“I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a team come back from 21-12,” Johnson said. “I told them that I would love to see it tonight. If they didn’t, I would love to see them build some momentum. And after that we outscored them 7-4. I think that was absolutely momentum-building into the third set.”
West Ranch sparked behind some solid serving and hitting. Cryst was getting the better of Cats junior Noah Douphner on the net, leading Logan Sanchez, the other outside hitter, to step up.
Sanchez followed up his strong outing in the CIF Southern Section title game performance with another gem, and had a team-high 12 kills with just one error on Tuesday.
As momentum swung in the Cats’ favor, the Lightning gave up a ton of hitting errors as well as a handful of points from being out of rotation, leading to Sage Hill’s fall.
The Lightning kept it tight early in the final two sets before the errors and the Wildcat serving pushed West Ranch ahead. A Lucas Retuer kill would be the final nail in the coffin and punch the Wildcats’ ticket into the semifinals.
It was tough for both teams to mentally lock back in after winning a Southern Section title, the ultimate goal for most high school squads. Both teams won their titles on Saturday, found out their state tournament opponents on Sunday and had one day of practice before the match.
“It’s very hard to come off of the high of winning CIF and within three days come out and play another match,” Johnson said. “We’re human beings. We reached one of the pinnacles that we could as athletes and coaches. It is very hard to prepare ourselves mentally to come into this game. The boys were loose, they played free, maybe a little too loose and free. But I’m just really proud of their effort.”
Reuter and Douphner both added a pair of blocks, while the latter also added four aces. Opposite hitter Ethan Paik added eight kills for West Ranch.
The Wildcats continue their first run in the regional tournament on Thursday in a home matchup with the Mission Vista Timberwolves of Oceanside.
The second-seeded Cats will host yet another big game in their postseason of firsts. A win on Thursday could prompt a long road trip for the SoCal finals, should West Ranch lineup with the top seed Sage Creek of Carlsbad.
Mission Vista enters the match as the San Diego Section Division 2 champs and makes the trip up Stevenson Ranch for semifinals bout on Thursday at 6 p.m.
