Westlake Volleyball Team Beats Lourdes in Sectional Final
By David Propper
With their championship aspirations within grasp, the Westlake Wildcats did what winners do — they closed out the decisive game smoothly, efficiently and with uncanny calmness.
In a five-set thriller Saturday afternoon inside a thunderingJohn Jay Cross River High School gymnasium, second–seeded Westlake took down top-seeded Our Lady of Lourdes 26-24, 23-25, 25-19, 15-25, 25-18 to win the Section 1, Class B volleyball title in a match where the Wildcats displayed a calm and determined demeanor throughout.
Westlake struck first in that fifth and deciding set and never relinquished a lead for a wire-to-wire finish. Pressure to maintain an edge over a talented Lourdes squad didn’t seem to bother a single Wildcat.
“We’re usually a slow starting team, so it’s nice to have a lead in the final set,” captain and senior setter Caleigh Carrsaid. “It really helped us out.”
The Wildcats quickly jumped out to a 3-0 advantage, and kept Lourdes scrambling the rest of the set. With Westlake ahead 24-18, the match ended and the celebration began once sophomore outside hitter Sydney Roell spiked her final kill of the afternoon. From there, Wildcat players converged and coaches, including head coach Carmen Bates and assistant coach Gina Perino, jumped into a dog pile.
Bates admitted she was nervous going into the decisivefinal set, especially after a fourth set dominated by the Warriors. But her players seemed cool and collected, even if their coach was sweating.
“They know that they have a lot of weapons and they just have to use them,” she said.
Carr said the players on the court weren’t nervous “because we just wanted to win so bad.”
While the Wildcats had a quick start in the final set, theyhad to come from behind in both their first-set and third–set wins. In the first set, Westlake was up against two Lourdes match points, but the Warriors squandered away both opportunities and then committed another unforced error to give Westlake the set.
In the third set, the Wildcats were again trailing much of the time until they went on a 9-2 run at the end and put themselves in position to take the Section 1 crown. Ahead or behind, the Westlake players’ coolness never seemed to disappear.
“I’ve been preaching grit to them all year and they definitely have grit,” Bates said.
Westlake got major contributions from junior outside hitter Laine Peterson, who notched 22 kills, and Roell, who had 20 kills. Carr set up teammates all match long, with 40 assists, and fellow senior captain Kelly Martin came though with five aces to lead the Wildcats.
During the 2014 season, the Wildcats also reached the section finals, but failed to succeed the way they did Saturday. Some of the players, including Carr and Martin,were there for the disappointment, which made this victory all the more sweet to savor.
In fact, the celebration, which included wearing gold–beaded necklaces with a chicken anchor (a rubber chicken became the team’s good luck charm with about a month left in the season), was the only time the Wildcats didn’t keep their emotions in check.
“I’m just so overwhelmed right now,” Carr said. “We wanted this for two years.”
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