Wesley Stombaugh is an ASU Cronkite School of Journalism student assigned to cover Westwood High School for AZPreps365.com
 

MESA – Westwood assistant coach Sofia Cortesio was fired up in the huddle Thursday night after watching a ball fall into the middle of all her players without anybody calling for it. 

After taking the first set, Westwood dropped the second to Red Mountain in ugly fashion with a number of unforced errors. 

“We need to act like we want to be here and play, and fix our faces,” junior outside hitter Kayla Hawkins said on what Cortesio told the team.

Westwood came out swinging immediately after, starting the third set with a 5-1 run.

The Warriors went on to win the next two sets and defeat Red Mountain 25-21, 15-25, 25-15, 25-22.

“We were just too focused on the mistakes that we were having in the second set that we couldn’t get out of our rut,” head coach Kanah Higbee said.

The Warriors got over these struggles in the third set, however, and carried that momentum into the fourth.

Communication was a key part of the turnaround, and Higbee said this came largely from senior libero Ada Larsen.

“Her IQ is just amazing,” Higbee said. And (she’s) able to just command that back row as best as she can.”

Larsen said she tries to lead her team both by uplifting her teammates and making sure they’re on the same page with where to go and what the game plan is.

“I think we started communicating a lot better and stopped hesitating,” Larsen said. “I think that was the biggest change (from the second set to the third).”

Set No. 3 was a set of runs.

Both teams traded runs early in the third set, but Westwood pulled away in the second half of the set after it led Red Mountain just 13-12 halfway through. 

Westwood (9-1, 4-0 6A East Valley Region) had five different runs of three points or more, including a 4-0 run to end the set.

Despite the loss, Red Mountain (2-9, 1-3) got star performances from their hitters.

Senior outside hitter Aaliyah Brooks had a service error early in the first set that led to a Red Mountain timeout after Westwood took a 12-6 lead on the back of sloppy play all around from the Mountain Lions.

However, that was no indication of what was to come from Brooks.

Brooks, along with her partner at the net, senior middle hitter Brooklyn Black, went on to be the biggest bright spot for Red Mountain in the loss.

Black already has 217 kills on the season, and both Black and Brooks were a problem for Westwood all night. 

“They’re amazing,” Higbee said about the two. “Kudos to them.”

Higbee said the team did a lot of film on Black and Brooks in the week leading up to the match, and knew it would be key to get them out of rotation to stifle their attack.

Up front for Westwood, it was Hawkins getting a number of key, emphatic kills down the stretch in the third and fourth sets, despite struggling early in the match and not having her best game according to Higbee.

“Kayla was in her head today, but she really came out of it and just carried the team like she usually does,” Higbee said.

The Warriors found a way to win even when it wasn’t pretty, and they remain atop the 6A East Valley Region.

“I wanted to win so badly, so I just came out and played even harder than I played in the first and second sets,” Hawkins said.