As the West Ranch Wildcats boys’ volleyball team exited the locker room after Wednesday’s playoff loss, the players were greeted by the support of their coaches.
“I told them that I was gonna get emotional after the game, because more than anything else, I’m just sad that I won’t get to coach this group again,” said West Ranch head coach Brandon Johnson. “It’s just a terrific group of young men that have grown on and off the court.”
Hosting the El Segundo Eagles in the first round of the CIF Southern Section Division 2 playoffs, the Wildcats fell in five sets as the Eagles stunned the Foothill League champions, 25-21, 24-26, 22-25, 25-19, 15-9.
West Ranch (30-6) senior Noah Douphner led the Wildcats with 32 kills, but he was matched by the power-hitting duo of senior twins Ryan and Dylan Pilkvist. Those two carried the Eagles past a Wildcats squad that went through its entire league campaign unbeaten, and only dropping four sets in those 12 contests.
After losing the first set to El Segundo, the Wildcats were able to pull ahead at 2-1. But the Eagles kept feeding their two stars, a strategy the Wildcats had no answer for.
Johnson said Douphner, a Cal State Northridge commit, tried his best to lift his teammates, but when things started going against the Wildcats, there just wasn’t enough in the end to make up the difference.
“It makes it tough,” Johnson said. “When we’re at our best, it’s not just Noah, and we know that, and when we get in trouble, it feels like it becomes just Noah, and then it’s a lot for one kid to shoulder. And he does his absolute best, and he’s an amazing superstar. He’s gonna have a humongous volleyball career. But yeah, we just didn’t quite have enough there at the end. It didn’t take away from how well we played the whole entire match, just didn’t quite have enough to finish at the end.”
Senior Logan Sanchez added 14 kills for West Ranch. Senior Jackson Manansala had 32 assists while sophomore Stephen Choi helped out with 13 of them.
The Wildcats were trying to repeat last year’s playoff success, when they captured the section Division 4 crown and reached the SoCal Regional Division 3 title match.
But with a new competitive equity playoff format instituted this season by the Southern Section, Johnson said he found that matches are much more competitive.
“Hopefully this system works moving forward, because as competitors, you want to battle, you want to play these kinds of matches,” Johnson said. “So, bummer the result ended this way, but it’s fun to play, for sure.”
Douphner, Sanchez and Manansala have all been on the varsity squad for Johnson since their sophomore years, as have seniors Lucas Fico and Parker Rappoport. Johnson said all five have been key parts of why the Wildcats have found success in their three years under him.
Not only champions on the court, the Wildcats also earned the Southern Section Academic Award last season, an award given to the team with the highest collective grade point average among schools with at least 1,500 students. West Ranch’s team had a 3.80 GPA.
“(The loss) shouldn’t take anything that they’ve accomplished over their whole entire career,” Johnson said, “because we can look up on the wall and see an academic team championship; we can look up on the wall and see a CIF championship; we can look up on the wall and see a Foothill League championship from this year. It doesn’t take away a single thing that this team has accomplished. This team this year, 2025, reached No. 13 in Southern California, which is a ridiculously huge accomplishment. So, it takes away nothing. It’s just sad and a bummer that we don’t get to keep playing.”
