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Lakewood had the luxury of hosting the first two rounds of the CIF-SS playoffs, but even on the road for Tuesday’s quarterfinal matchup against crosstown rival Mayfair, the Lancers found themselves right at home.
The two teams, separated by just two miles along Woodruff Avenue, had split their two matchups this season, but Tuesday night’s meeting was win-or-go-home with a trip to the CIF-SS Division 6 semifinals on the line. As they have throughout the playoffs, the Lancers rose to the occasion with their third straight postseason sweep, beating Mayfair 25-19, 25-11, 25-18.
“It means a lot,” said Lakewood coach Adam Wadley. “We’ve been preparing the last couple of days with the possibility of playing Mayfair again, and I told them that our previous games against them this year don’t matter. The playoffs are a different animal, and we just stayed prepared the whole week.”
Lakewood was led by its senior captains, as outside hitter Jenna Smith put together another astounding performance, hitting .629 with a game-high 14 kills. Setter Layla Bailey-Zavala finished with 33 assists and four aces, while middle blocker Aaryn Hunter added six kills, nine blocks and a pair of aces.
“We’ve both beaten each other once this season, and we wanted to get that last win against them and end their season,” Smith said after the game. “I don’t like the feeling of losing to another team in Lakewood, and we know how to play a rowdy team like them. We just came together as a team and just played our way.”
The Lancers trailed by five points early in the first set before a dominant 15-4 run midway through the set gave them a commanding lead, and they never trailed again. Lakewood built sizable leads in the following two sets, closing out the match against a Mayfair team that had rallied for five-set comeback wins in each of the first two rounds of the playoffs.
“We started out a little slower like we did against Yucaipa last round, so we’ve been there before,” Wadley said. “I told them that it was going to be a really tough match because we know Mayfair can come back, and they weren’t going to go away easy. I told them not to settle and get comfortable and just to keep pushing.”
Lakewood found success generating service pressure with 16 total aces, led by sophomore outside hitter Erica Ortiz. Ortiz finished with a match-high six aces and started each set behind the service line, helping the Lancers build early leads in the second and third sets. Lakewood opened the second set with an 8-1 lead before starting the third on an 8-0 run.
“She was probably the X-factor of our performance tonight,” Wadley said of Ortiz. “Starting off those two sets with those runs really put us in a great spot to perform for the rest of those sets. We’ve been really working on serve and pass for the last couple of weeks, and [Ortiz] has been one of our better servers in the last few weeks, if not the best.”
Lakewood was able to hold off Mayfair with those early leads, closing out an emphatic second set on a 7-1 run behind a strong stretch from sophomore opposite London Livesey, who contributed three kills and a block to finish the set. Livesey finished with nine kills, while Lakewood maintained at least a five-point lead throughout the third set en route to the sweep.
The win punches the Lancers’ ticket to the semifinals on Saturday, when Lakewood will host Castaic. The Lancers last reached the semifinals in 2024, when they fell at home to Corona in the Division 5 bracket. Tuesday night’s win also clinches a berth in the CIF State playoffs for Lakewood following the conclusion of the Southern Section playoffs.
“We’ve been training for this since January,” Smith said. “We just won tonight, but so what? We have two more games left, and every team is just in our way from getting a championship. We’re not settling for this. It’s been nice sweeping these teams, but at the end of the day, it’s playoff volleyball. We just want to win and keep winning, whether it goes three, four or five.”
