Harvard-Westlake takes regional final in four sets
The Harvard-Westlake girls volleyball team led for the majority of the fourth set in the Division I SoCal Regional Finals, but when it came to match point, Sierra Canyon tightened its grip.
The Trailblazers went on a five-point run, then tacked on two points, then three points. The Wolverines were buzzing with excitement as they held on to one match point situation after another. At one point their reserves even ran onto the court in celebration, thinking they had won the match.
In the end, HarvardWestlake’s big hitting prevailed. With force that echoed through the gym, Grace Thrower sent down the winning kill as the Wolverines took the match, 2513, 19-25, 25-17, 25-22.
“There was a moment there when we celebrated too early,” Harvard-Westlake senior Kennedy Hill said. “And a lot of the time, it means that we’re just a little too frantic. And like, it took us a while to calm back down.”
Hill, a Northwestern commit, was visibly shaking with excitement after the match. The Wolverines (29-8) brought energy from the first serve, with intense screams exchanged after points and even an occasional shove.
It carried them to a 25-13 win in the first game, which was punctuated with two blocks from Hill.
Sierra Canyon (24-8), seemingly not rattled, jumped out to an early lead in the second game. It separated itself with a fivepoint run that ended with Madeline Way’s kill midway through for a 21-14 advantage. Later on, Danica Rach put the game away on a kill.
Way and Rach are two of four sophomores on the Trailblazers’ roster. Sierra Canyon, which lost in the
CIF Southern Section Division 1 quarterfinals to Mater Dei, will lose only three seniors from this year’s team to graduation.
“I think just playing in these environments is going to really prepare them for what’s to come next year,” Sierra Canyon coach Stefanie Wigfall said. “So just being able to extend their season is really important to show them that it can go. It can really go and you’ve got to be able to maintain and get better and better and better.”
The third game reached a tie at 7-all before a Sierra Canyon hit went long. From there, Harvard-Westlake steadily extended its lead and scored four straight points with two kills apiece from Sophia Lindus and Ava-Marie Lange.
The Wolverines, who earlier lost to Marymount in the CIF-SS Division 1 quarterfinals, secured match point when a Trailblazers serve went long.