6A volleyball playoffs: Weber defends home court with 4-set win over Westlake
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- Weber High’s Havi Montano celebrates after hitting a kill during a 6A volleyball first-round playoff game against Westlake on Tuesday, Nov. 1, 2022.
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- Weber High’s Bella Berensen tries to tip the ball over the net during a 6A volleyball first-round playoff game against Westlake on Tuesday, Nov. 1, 2022.
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- Weber High’s Martina Borda-Bossana, left, and Bella Berensen, right, jump to block a shot during a 6A volleyball first-round playoff game against Westlake on Tuesday, Nov. 1, 2022.
PLEASANT VIEW — Since the introduction of the RPI seeding system for state tournaments, Weber High volleyball is 2-1 in first-round playoff games on the road.
In 2019, Weber beat Herriman in a five-setter on the road and then swept American Fork on the road last year.
The Warriors hadn’t hosted a home volleyball playoff game, though, until Tuesday night. And now, they’re 1 for 1 in home playoff games after a 25-15, 23-25, 25-19, 25-16 win over No. 21 Westlake in the first round of the 6A state tournament.
No. 12 Weber (18-12) did a little bit of everything against the Thunder, from going on long serving runs, to getting blocks up, to scoring on big hits and scrambling to keep the ball off the deck.
“I think we’re well-rounded. We have a huge block this year in general, all our players can jump really high and block really hard, and we can swing,” junior outside hitter Havi Montano said. “We have some amazing defensive players, we’re really well-rounded.”
Even though Westlake came in with a 5-21 record, it was sort of a trap game given the Thunder play in Region 4, which has produced the last 10 state volleyball champions in Utah’s highest classification going back to 2012 and typically fares well against Region 1 in the postseason.
After Weber took a huge lead in the first set and eventually won it, Westlake got up early in the second. Weber went on a run to go ahead 16-12, then the Thunder led 22-19 and won the second set 25-23.
Weber trailed again early in the third at 9-6 and 12-10. Once sophomore Brooke Whitlock started serving a few points later, the Warriors went on a big run and eventually took a 21-15 lead.
In the fourth set, seniors Kallie Gibby and Bella Berensen got a couple of blocks to go down and Montano won a few points off some big swings. Jackie Craven hit a big kill from the right side that landed in the middle of all six Westlake players to put Weber ahead 16-12 in the fourth and simultaneously take some energy out of the Thunder.
Weber went 15-17 last year but won six of its final seven matches and won the sixth-place game at last year’s 6A state tournament, ultimately going 4-1 in the postseason.
Sort of like last year, the Warriors have had a better second half of this season.
Coming into Tuesday’s game, they’d won seven of their last eight matches and eight out of 10 to finish third in Region 1 and 17-12 overall in the regular season. They beat Fremont this year for the first time since 2018 and swept Fremont for the first time since 2016.
Now, the streak is eight wins in nine matches and a second-round playoff meeting with Davis, with whom Weber split the regular-season series, at 9 a.m. Thursday at Utah Valley University.
“We’ve just kind of built a little bit more of a team-ship dynamic, if that even makes sense,” Montano said. “We didn’t necessarily figure out what we were doing wrong, we just figured out what was going to be right and it just worked.”
Connect with reporter Patrick Carr via email at pcarr@standard.net, Twitter @patrickcarr_ and Instagram @standardexaminersports.