Westlake Talks Itself Into Victory Over Royal

The most important meeting of the season for Westlake High took place amid picnic tables, garbage cans and vending machines.

The Warriors were thrashed by Royal Saturday in the Royal girls’ volleyball tournament.

It was decided outside the Royal gym on Tuesday that a different day meant a different attitude for Westlake, which met as a team and played like one in a 15-9, 15-13, 4-15, 15-7, victory over the Highlanders in a Marmonte League match.

Westlake (9-2, 4-0 in league play) served tough, was even tougher on defense and provided a varied offense that kept the Highlanders (14-4, 3-1) off kilter.

Stacey Lee had 12 kills, Lauren Mills added 11 and the Warriors looked nothing like the team that lost to Royal in the tournament semifinals, 15-12, 15-3, three days earlier.

“We talked for a good half hour about what to do to keep each other in the game,” said Lee, who had 10 digs. “We just didn’t get psyched out this time.”

Lee had five kills in the first game for Westlake, which took advantage of seven service errors by Royal to win the second game.

The Highlanders recouped and won the third game, but Westlake returned to its efficient ways.

“They made very few mistakes,” Coach Bob Ferguson of Royal said. “If you compare our mistakes to theirs, ours were catastrophic. They played almost flawless.”

Amanda Kiser had 19 kills for Royal, ranked No. 3 in the region by The Times.

Westlake, ranked No. 5 in the region, had 12 aces.