A month ago, Westlake coach Al Bennett said that it might take half the district schedule for his injury-riddled team to find its rhythm.

Consider that cadence reached.

The Chaps (25-6, 6-0) delivered a third consecutive beatdown to a District 25-5A foe with a 25-8, 25-15, 25-19 win over Anderson Tuesday at Westlake High School. Coming on the heels of convincing victories over Connally and Bowie, the performance confirmed the Chaps’ growing comfort with their rotation.

“We’ve been playing at a high level offensively for a few games now,” Bennett said. “We started fast tonight, and we really achieved everything that we wanted to.”

That wish list began with serve-receive against a solid Anderson (9-9, 3-3) team seeking to stay in playoff contention. The Trojans had only one ace, and Westlake committed just two passing errors for the entire match.

Bennett also wanted to work right-side hitter Ella Praisner more into the offense, and Praisner delivered four kills in the first game while complementing a quartet of kills from Sara Shaw on the opposite side in that same stanza.

“We really wanted to get Ella going, and that was good to see,” Bennett said.

Shaw ended the match with a team-high seven kills, but she had plenty of company on the stat sheet. Nine Chaps had at least three kills, including Priscilla Leake (six kills), Jennifer Schuler (five), Hannah Kolar (four), Katie Sorenson (four), Lauren Mitchell (three), Erin Bula (three) and Hannah Hood (three).

Avery Edwards had a strong game with 15 assist and three aces.
According to Leake, however, Westlake’s recent string of strong showings had more to do with something other than statistics.

“Last year, I feel like we had better team chemistry, but this year we have better players,” she said. “We’re starting to get that chemistry now.”

Mackenzie Perry led Anderson with seven kills. Overall, the Trojans had as many errors (18) as kills.