Winning a VOL championship is the goal for every high school sports team. The Weston Ranch Cougar men’s volleyball team began the season with hopes and dream of this and accomplished their goal. Finishing 13-4 overall and 7-1 in the VOL helped the Cougars earn a share of the VOL title and earned them a fourth seed in the recently completed Division III playoff.

The Cougars raced out to a quick two games to none lead against first-round opponent Stone Ridge Christian Academy of Merced, but quickly found themselves tied 2-2 heading into the fifth game. The teams traded points in the deciding match, and the Cougars held on to win the final set 17-15. The victory over SRCHS set up a meeting with West Campus of Sacramento. WRHS and West were tied after the first two sets, but West proved to be too much over the next two games as they won a tight set 3 25-21 and pulled away in set 4 25-7.

As the 2019 Weston Ranch men’s volleyball season has come to an exhilarating end, we would like to acknowledge some of their outstanding accomplishments.

Josh Ico, an outside hitter for the Cougars, said: “Coming into the season, we had high expectations of ourselves, and we ended up living up to them.”

And indeed, they did. In addition to the impressive league record, and co-championship, several Cougars also earned some outstanding individual awards. Armando Mendoza was named VOL MVP. Josh Ico, Mailo Bayot, and Jimmy Nguyen were named to the VOL first team. Raul Melgarejo and Andre Salazar were named to the VOL second team.

Congratulations to coach Chavez and her team on their great season and outstanding recognition from the league coaches.