The West Ranch Wildcats boys’ volleyball team began its 2025 campaign by celebrating its CIF championship from the previous season.
But the Wildcats aren’t done celebrating.
West Ranch beat the Hart Hawks in four sets, 25-22, 21-25, 25-16, 25-21, on the road on Monday to clinch the Foothill League title outright.
The win brings the league title back to the program that claimed it for six straight seasons from 2016 to 2022 and increases the total haul for the Wildcats (29-5, 11-0) up to eight.
“This was priority No. 1 coming into the season,” West Ranch head coach Brandon Johnson said in a phone interview. “Our league is very good and has been for a couple years, and it is actually really awesome to see the growth in our league and see the competition in our league and how you can go into every single match and have to prepare and know that you’re gonna have a battle on your hands.”
Senior Noah Douphner was his usual dominant self on Monday with 15 kills. The Cal State Northridge commit also recorded six aces and six digs to finish off an all-around effort.
Douphner’s rise to prominence — he’s a two-time first-team all-league selection already and is likely on his way to being named the 2025 league Player of the Year, a feat his brother, Owen, accomplished during his senior campaign at Hart in 2023 — has coincided with the Wildcats returning to their dominance in the league. West Ranch had gone 4-9 in 2023, then 8-4 last season.
On the season, Douphner has amassed 509 kills, which puts him in the top three in the entire country as of this story’s publication.
“It’s no secret that that we have a star on the team, and he is the perfect star that you want on the team,” Johnson said. “He is someone that builds his teammates up. He is someone that makes his teammates better … But the beautiful thing about volleyball is, is that it is a team sport, and so if it was just him doing his thing, we would not be successful, and we have other people step up on a nightly basis.”
Senior Jacob Kim added seven kills. Senior Jackson Manansala supplied 21 assists and sophomore Stephen Choi added 15 assists.
“I think our two setters are two of the top setters in our area, not only in Santa Clarita, but in the surrounding area as well,” Johnson said. “We’re very confident when both of them are on the court. I would be very confident if one ran the whole show, and the fact that we have two is just such a benefit to the team.”
Junior Isaac Lane led West Ranch with 11 digs.
Hart (1-17, 0-10) became just the third team in the Foothill League to take a set from West Ranch. The Wildcats had dropped just three sets in their first 10 matches, two to Valencia and one to Saugus, before Hart made it four on Monday.
The title-clinching win on Monday came after the Wildcats went 6-1 to finish in fifth place at the Redondo Tournament over the weekend, including a win over Valencia to make it three wins over their rivals this season. Valencia had gone 2-1 against West Ranch last season, but that one loss came in the CIF championship match.
“We had a really long week, and we had, like, 10 matches in five days,” Johnson said. “We played that long tournament. We’ve just been grinding it, so super proud of the boys, proud of their work ethic.”
The Wildcats can make it a perfect Foothill League campaign, as they did each season during their six-peat title run, on Wednesday with a win on the road at Golden Valley.
