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Maple Mountain's Trey Thornton reacts during a Region 7 boys volleyball match against Springville on Tuesday, April 29, 2025.

Harold Mitchell, Special to the Daily Herald

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Orem's Ben Hone (25) takes a swing against Payson in a Region 8 boys volleyball match on Thursday, April 17, 2025.

Darnell Dickson, Daily Herald

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Year 2 of boys high school volleyball in the state of Utah should be even better than Year 1.

Last season the state crowned its first four state champions in boys volleyball: Pleasant Grove in Class 6A, Maple Mountain in Class 5A, Pine View in Class 4A and Grantsville in Class 3A. Play improved dramatically over the course of the season, producing high-level volleyball in the all of the finals.

This week at Utah Valley’s UCCU Center, four more gold trophies will be awarded.

Here’s a look at the 6A, 5A, 4A and 3A tournaments.

Class 6A

Bingham (21-4) earned the No. 1 seed in 6A after rolling to 14 consecutive victories. Region 3 champion Westlake (22-5) is No. 2, Lehi is No. 4 and Lone Peak No. 7. Last year’s 6A champ, Pleasant Grove, is the No. 13 seed.

Westlake rolled through Region 3 unbeaten (10-0) after taking down Cedar Valley in a sweep on Friday. Junior Kilika Tafa has 286 kills and gets offensive help from junior Kyson Ririe (181 kills), senior Parker Swenson (178 kills) and sophomore Thomas Wood (142) kills, with senior setter Keagan Cundiff (826 assists) directing things.

“It’s been such a blessing to coach this team,” Westlake coach Whitney Randall said. “At the end of the season last year we did not end up how we wanted to. So we spent a lot of time talking about it and training some specific things to kind of bridge some of the gaps we saw last year. Coming in and beating a tough region in No. 1, No. 2 and No. 3 from last year is something that we’re really proud of and we’re hoping to take that energy into the state tournament.”

The 6A Tournament has two first round matches on Monday, then runs Friday and Saturday with the championship match at 4:30 p.m. on Saturday.

Class 5A

It would take a tremendous upset to derail No. 1 Maple Mountain (25-1) from winning a second straight 5A title. The Golden Eagles, led by 6-foot-7 BYU signee Trey Thornton and 6-7 setter Taft Hillman, have won 38 straight matches against Utah competition.

Still, there are a couple of dangerous candidates in the tournament field.

No. 2 Bountiful (24-4) has won 12 matches in a row and No. 4 Alta (18-7) is 10-1 in its past 11 matches. The catalyst for the Hawks has been been another BYU signee, Corbin Batista, a 6-foot-6 outside hitter who is the son of former Cougar great Victor Batista. Corbin Batista transferred to Alta from Snow Canyon in St. George and wasn’t eligible to start the season. In 11 matches he is averaging 5.2 kills per set and hitting .399, with 45 kills in his past two matches.

Maple Mountain knows it has a big target on its back and welcomes the challenge.

“From the beginning, the players knew what the goal was, and that is to win state again,” Golden Eagles coach Napoleon Galang said. “Every day in the gym we give the players challenges. We have to keep them challenged in every aspect of the game. They know they have to stay on top of it, because everybody is after us. As long as we play our game, play consistently and clean, and win the serve and pass game, it’s going to be ours to lose.”

The 4A tournament begins with first round matches on Monday, leading to Friday’s second round and finally the championship match on Saturday at 7 p.m.

CLASS 4A

Orem (22-6) is right back where it was to start last year’s tournament as the No. 1 seed. The Tigers lost a heartbreaking five-set match to Pine View in the 4A final, falling in the fifth set 17-15. Orem setter Lucky Jennings has a lot of options to feed, including leading hitter Ben Hone (203 kills) and middles Aaron Nielsen and Luke Wolsey.

Tigers coach Bill Sefita, who has coached the Orem girls team to back-to-back state titles, said the state tournament is as much a mental challenge as it is a physical one.

“We’ve been able to meet with one of our psychologists, John Osborne,” Sefita said. “He’s done a good work with us. I think that’s one thing that’s kind of helped us. We had a tough loss against Riverton a few weeks ago, so bouncing back into the next week, we met with sports psychologists and that helped us work on, how to be mentally tough and be more present within the game.”

The other challengers in the tournament are No. 2 Murray (18-7), No. 3 Desert Hills (16-8) and No. 4 Crimson Cliffs (17-8).

Play begins Wednesday and concludes with the championship match on Thursday at 4:30 p.m.

CLASS 3A

The 3A tournament runs concurrently with the 4A and is also Wednesday and Thursday. Ogden (20-5) is the No. 1 seed and will open with No. 17 UMA-Camp Williams (4-17). American Heritage (15-11) is the No. 6 seed and Freedom Prep (17-9) is No. 9.