High school boys volleyball: Westlake survives Lone Peak and finishes with perfect region record

Westlake entered Thursday’s game with Lone Peak with the Region 3 title already locked up, but it was still playing for a perfect 10-0 region record.

The perfect record was in jeopardy as Lone Peak made a late rally but Westlake held it off 28-26, 25-13, 20-25 and 26-24 for the 3-1 win.

“We ended the season last year on not the note that we wanted to,” said Westlake head coach Whitney Randall. “We spent a lot of time in the offseason talking about it and training some specific things to kind of help bridge some of those gaps that we saw last year. So, coming in and beating a tough region is something that we’re really proud of and we’re hoping to take that energy into the state tournament next weekend.”

Out of the gate it seemed like the Knights were the more polished team. Lone Peak’s Brady Hold came out swinging with six kills in the first set and Westlake struggled to hit past the block.

However, the Knights shot themselves in the foot with five service errors which the Thunder took full advantage of. Lone Peak led 24-23 in the first set but Westlake came back to win set one 28-26 with a block from Micah Sorensen.

Westlake’s energy completely flipped in the second set with backrow attacks from Kilika Tafa fueling the offense. Tafa helped open up his teammates and the Thunder attack looked like a championship caliber offense. Tafa totaled six kills in the set as they dominated the Knights 25-13.

“We try to run a four-man offense,” said Randall. “We have four men up on each ball and it really helps diversify it. It keeps the blockers on their toes. These kids (have) played together for a long time, some of them four or five years, so it’s nice to have that connection with the setter with all the hitters.”

While Westlake significantly improved its execution in the second set, it faltered yet again in the third. Lone Peak’s defense did nearly everything it needed with strong blocks and digs behind the block.

Service errors started to become a bigger problem for the Thunder with four in the third set and 17 total in Thursday’s game.

“One thing we’ve always kind of put an emphasis on is that if we serve tough and we get them out of out of system, that’s something that we that we’re aiming for,” Randall said. “So we’re OK with a few misses as long as the ones that are in are good. We’ve always been trying to serve tough and we’ll continue to try to make more serves, but we’re working on it.”

The Knights kept up the momentum into the fourth set and took an early lead. Once again Lone Peak’s defense became the star of the show with keeping balls in the air and allowing its offense to rally which earned it a 23-20 lead.

Westlake wanted to avoid a fifth set at all costs and Tafa came to the rescue. After a Thunder side out, Tafa recorded a kill, a block and another kill in consecutive rallies to secure the 26-24 fourth set win and a perfect Region 3 record. Tafa led the Thunder in kills with 20.

“We play better when we’re kind of loose and I noticed that we were just kind of stiff,” said Tafa. “So, I just told the boys just to have high energy and just play loose and just play it like the best we can because that’s really all we can do.”

Westlake now turns its head to the state tournament next week. The Thunder have learned from last year’s loss, where they were upset by No. 7 Syracuse in the quarterfinals, and are making sure they don’t look too far ahead.

“We can win, but that’s not our focus,” Tafa said. “Our focus is to go one at a time because you know the end goal is to win, but we can’t go straight to the end goal without going through all the games. We’re just trying to keep humble minds and just go one play at a time and see what happens from there.”