Boys volleyball swept Classical Academy in their third non-league match, defeating the Caimans, 3-0, March 8.
The team started the season having won all of their non-league matches.
The Wolverines claimed the first set by five, 25-20, with a combination of service aces by setter Luke Forster (12), as well as spikes from hitters Noah Lim (12) and Caden Sajnog (12).
“Our hitters always see where there’s an open space on the court and try to place the ball there,” Forster said. “It can get kind of tricky, but a lot of times it’s kind of just being smart, especially when the other team is not fully ready.”
Libero Caleb Lim (11) was also a critical component to the team’s equation, exerting dominant control over the ball the entire game.

“A big part is communicating with your teammates, but besides that, just trying to read where the ball will go also [helps],” he said. “As a libero, my job is basically to get the ball up in a way so we can run our offense and try to win the point.”
Going into the second set, Westview struggled a bit at the beginning, falling behind Classical, but were ultimately able to regain the lead again and close out a close set, 27-25.
“We were down just because we took it too lightly and lost focus,” Forster said. “We were able to regain focus and [shifted] to [improve] our serves because we missed several in the first set and at the beginning of the second.”
Classical had a lot of free balls throughout the three sets, which the Wolverines were able to use to their advantage.
“Passing is probably, if not one, then the most important part of volleyball,” Forster said. “If you have good possession and primary passing control, [you have] more opportunities to score and it’s all thanks to our talented passers.
Lim said that the team’s strength during the game relied on the team’s physical and mental capabilities.
“Our strengths were hitting and our serving, [but also] having control of the ball [and knowing] when to swing or serve at a hundred percent or at like sixty percent,” he said.

Despite the quick turnover of possession and the fast momentum of the game, the team was able to maintain their dominant lead over the Caimans due to the sheer energy of the fans and teammates as they cheered from the seats and the stands.
“When the benches get loud, we get loud and when the crowd is loud, we get loud, and in turn play better,” Forster said. “When we miss a serve or score a point, we always come together and it helps us forget what happened and helps us [keep going].”
Finally, at the climax of the game, the team claimed their victory with a score of 25-21 in the third set with Forster scoring a good amount of the points with his serves.
Forster said that the team played well to defeat Classica, but said that he still believes the team could’ve done better and they just need to reach their full potential.
“I definitely think there’s room for improvement and I think a lot of people on our team knew that they could have done a lot better,” he said. “I do think, though, it was good for us to close out all three sets.”
Lim agreed that the team definitely could have performed at a better level but still thinks they played well to beat Classical in those three straight sets.
“Overall, I think the game was good and we played pretty well,” he said. “Some things I think we could’ve worked on were talking and [communicating] on the court more.”

Before the game, the team had won its first two games against Canyon Crest Academy, March 1, and Carlsbad High school, March 2, but then hit a wall in a two-day tournament after, where they only won one of the six games, March 4-5.
“I think the tournament kind of put down our hopes and our mentality,” Forster said. “I think we learned that we needed to focus the entire time. A lot of the times [during the tournament] we just lost focus towards the end of the sets.”
Forster said that the team can do better in their future games and counts on clamining more victories for Westview.
“We definitely knew we should be taking these wins and we definitely can, so going forward we should be expecting to do better and win our games.”
Both Forster and Lim have high hopes for this season regardless of the tournament.
They believe that the team has great potential for this year that has been preparing ever since the off-season.
“Pretty much everyone plays club and we all also played beach volleyball during the fall, which were both really good preparations because you get to practice all the skills for [the regular season],” Forster said. “We had a good lineup last year but didn’t have that good team chemistry. This year coming into it I feel we have way better team chemistry and as long as we work as a team we can get way better.”
“[My] hope for the team is to take league [this year],” Lim said. “However, I feel like we still have some work to do if we are to accomplish this.”