STOCKTON — East Union stumbled out of the gate Wednesday before bouncing back to defeat host Weston Ranch 16-25, 25-16, 25-16, 25-15 in Valley Oak League boys volleyball action. 
“We did come out flat,” Lancers coach Cat Edojo said. “We didn’t really play with focus or goals, so I just told them from the second set on that we were playing with an absolute objective.
“We tried hard to send everything to the setter and it worked.”
Parmbir Khattra was the setter for East Union (6-2 VOL, 7-7 overall) and stayed busy, dishing out 47 assists. His primary target was Flavio Mercado, who had 17 kills and two blocks.
“We had to stay focused,” Mercado said. “A loss would hurt our chances at the playoffs.”
Emanuel Knight chipped in 15 kills and three aces for the Lancers.
“We eventually did what we had to do,” Knight said. “We weren’t focused in the first game. We were doing more playing around instead of playing the game.
“In the second, third and fourth games we came together and gained focus.”
The first set belonged to the Cougars (1-5, 7-10), taking an early lead and building on it throughout the game.
“East Union made a lot of their mistakes in the first set,” Weston Ranch coach Debi Chavez said. “They were scrappier in the second, third and fourth games.
“So, they kind of cleaned up their game which frustrated us and we slowed down our pace once they picked up theirs.”
Josh Ico had five kills for Weston Ranch. Jimmy Nguyen added eight digs and Donovan Phouthavong had six blocks.

Manteca 3, Sierra 0
The Buffaloes (7-0, 15-0) are a win away from securing at least a share of a second straight VOL championship after rolling past host Sierra (0-6, 0-14), 25-11, 25-6, 25-8.
Two of their final three matches are against second-place teams Lathrop and East Union, but they’ll first compete in the Granite Bay Tournament on Saturday.
“We have to get in the right frame of mind for the home stretch,” Manteca coach Kevin Bolding said. “We can’t let people hang around because you never know. Everybody played tonight and they did a great job.”
Kylan Chandler led Manteca with 10 kills and five digs. Cameron Reis and Noah Gonzales contributed six and five kills, respectively. Jonathan Borres accumulated 20 assists, five digs and two aces. Joseph Borres had 12 digs and six aces. Rovig Hombrebueno added five digs.