EPIC

By Brandon Petersen

For a team built from spare parts, transfers, late arrivals and a whole lot of hope, Westcliff women's volleyball was supposed to be a year away. A rebuild year. A "figure-it-out" year. A roster head coach Greg Wakeham assembled like a roadside mechanic — whatever pieces he could find, whatever held together, whatever could somehow get them down the road.

And then came Cal Lutheran.

A simple midseason nonconference match that should've been forgettable turned into the turning point of the entire season.

Westcliff entered at 4–9. Raw. Searching. Still learning each other's rhythms. But something clicked that night. A spark. A new identity.

From that moment forward, the Warriors ripped off a 10–4 run, dropping only four matches — all to Simpson — and going a perfect 10–0 against everyone outside of Redding.

That version of Westcliff — the one that found itself, trusted itself and finally understood what it could be — is the one that walked into the Continental Athletic Conference Tournament as the No. 6 seed on Friday morning.

And that version is the one that marched out with two monumental upsets, stunning No. 1 Florida National in four sets, then sweeping No. 3 Carolina (N.C.) to advance out of Pool A.

Westcliff 3, Florida National 1. Westcliff 3, Carolina 0.
A clean, controlled, emphatic 2–0 day against two nationally respected programs.

"We had nothing to lose today," Wakeham said. "We were the six-seed. Nobody expected us to do anything except maybe hang around. But we've been building toward this moment. Since that Cal Lutheran match, the girls have believed in themselves in a way that's different.

"Today, you saw the team they've become."

What the Warriors became on Friday was a disciplined, fearless, fully realized version of the group that spent September and early October figuring out who they were.

Against Florida National — the tournament's top seed and a perfect 6–0 against CAC opposition — Westcliff unloaded 67 kills and hit .295 as a team. Stacy Folas was unstoppable, ripping 28 kills on .520 hitting. Samantha Carelock added 19 kills of her own, and setter Amanda Ferreira ran a near-flawless offense with 59 assists.

But the moment Wakeham knew his team was something different wasn't the stat sheet. It was how they carried themselves.

"In the huddles, they weren't panicked," he said. "Florida National made their runs, but the girls looked at each other like, 'We're fine. We know what we're doing.' That wasn't there in September. That confidence is earned."

The confidence fed on itself, and by the time Westcliff got to its afternoon match against Carolina, the Warriors looked like a team that had been here before.

They swept the No. 3 Bruins 25–21, 25–19, 25–20 behind a balanced attack — 14 kills from Folas, 11 from Carelock, and six from Renee Lepage — and a defense that refused to crack.

"We served tough, we passed nails, and we blocked with purpose," Wakeham said. "That's the identity we've been trying to build. And the girls did it on the biggest stage."

The turnaround has been nothing short of remarkable. At the end of the season, Westcliff was a bubble team, unsure whether it would even make the CAC postseason. But two clutch wins at the end of conference play — over Simpson and Pacific Union — secured the invite.

What followed was the clearest sign yet that the Warriors are far more dangerous than their seeding suggests.

"It's been about growth," Wakeham said. "We built this thing from scratch. New pieces everywhere. New roles. New chemistry. And it took time. I give these girls so much credit because they kept showing up every day ready to work. And now they're playing their best volleyball of the year when it matters most."

Saturday now becomes the biggest day of the season. Westcliff advances to the CAC semifinals with momentum, belief and the kind of swagger only earned through a two-upset day against the bracket's top heavyweights.

Wakeham, though, wasn't ready to take credit.

"It's them," he said. "They did this. They trusted the process. They trusted each other. We just kept preaching, 'We're building. We're building.' And now? Now we're here."

From 4–9 and lost, to 10–4 and climbing, to upsetting giants on the national stage.

The rebuild didn't just arrive early — it crashed through the front door.

Westcliff is no longer learning who it is.

Westcliff knows.

And everyone else in the CAC knows now too.