The energy in the WHS Varsity Gym was electric, as Westfield boys volleyball was two points from sealing the second set and the win against Plainfield after dominating in the first set. Senior Logan Welsh stepped up to the service line, took a deep breath and served two aces for the win. The match overall was stress free for Westfield, as they were clearly superior in skill to Plainfield.
The mindset of the team going into the Quarterfinal of the Union County Tournament, according to head coach Edward Saggio, was to “survive and make it to the next round.” Senior captain Ethan Cha expanded on that and said their mindset going in was to “just keep the energy up, start off with a lot of energy, get momentum going on and to not take our foot off the gas if we were up.”
This win improved the Blue Devils’ record to 16-5 for the season. Saggio highlighted the team’s improvement on blocking, which he noted has been their achilles heel all year, and the power behind their serves. Senior Brock Borlenghi agreed. “I think we did a little bit better on blocking today. Our coach has been really on us about that recently,” said Borlenghi.
After surviving the quarterfinals, there is always anticipation for the next round — following that, the finals. Over the past two seasons, the Blue Devils have fallen to Scotch-Plains Fanwood, a conference powerhouse, in two straight sets in the finals. However, earlier this season, the boys pulled away with their first ever victory in program history against the Raiders 2-1. “Obviously, they are now out for blood,” Borlenghi said. “Our coach has told us to think about the now, about the games that are coming up, because, again, all the future is just still tentative. But, if we are thinking about SPF, it’s definitely gonna be a fight. We are going to have to play our absolute best against them.”
The boys look to continue their county tournament run in the semifinals on Wednesday against Union at Arthur L. Johnson High School at a to-be-determined time. “We’re definitely gonna work hard [on Tuesday] during practice,” Cha explained. “We will do a lot of drills, so we can focus on blocking to make sure that the mistakes that happen today don’t happen again on Wednesday.” Borlenghi echoed Cha, “We’re gonna work really hard at practice tomorrow, focus on more blocking, more defense skills, more offense and just overall working on taking back the loss that we had to Union earlier this season.”
“[Union is] very athletic,” Saggio added. “They’re a little on the smaller side, but we have to be able to block.”
