Westlake showed flashes of what it was capable of throughout the high school baseball season and found the stability it needed in the postseason to make a long-awaited deep run.

The Rams will play in the quarterfinals this week for the first time since 1998 after beating Winnfield on the road over the weekend 2-1 in a best-of-three regional series.

“I think that acceptance of team first has caught on lately, and I think that is the biggest credit to our success right now,” Westlake head coach Blake Reed said. “The guys are worried about the win instead of their batting average, their stat line.

“We knew we were fairly talented from the get-go, more talented than we have been of late. We have been piecing together a lineup and a strategy kind of like a puzzle. It is just trying to figure out how those puzzle pieces fit.”

The Rams’ mainstays have been senior Ethan Koonce (5-4, 1.12 ERA, 75 K, 592/3 IP) and sophomore Kash Martin (.466 avg., 5 HR, 29 RBIs, 40 runs, 25 SB). But recently others have made contributions, making the Rams a more complete team.

“Those guys have been our driving force on both sides, but the biggest thing is we are starting to get guys that are just doing what we ask of them,” Reed said. “Those two guys are getting some really good numbers for us, but even the bottom side of the order is starting to pick up the slack a little bit.

“Defensively, we have guys just make routine plays. We have preached that all year: make outs out.”

Hadley Hardesty is 2-0 in the postseason with a 2.15 ERA in 13 innings, while A.J. Lee has allowed four earned runs in 12 innings of work. Jace Dawson hit a grand slam in the seventh inning to break open game one against Winnfield on Friday, and three-hole hitter Trey Brown has put down key bunts.

“I think this weekend in Winnfield we used 15 different guys in some role whether that is a courtesy runner, pinch-hit or somebody go in and play defensively,” Reed said. “A couple of them were guys that were JV guys all year, but the last couple of weeks they have been showing glimpses of being ready for the moment and we are going to give them that opportunity if it calls for it.

“A.J. Lee for example. He is a guy that would probably never end up in the newspaper. Nothing he does is super flashy. It is very under the radar. You ask him to do a job whether it be third base or right field. We threw him in relief for five innings this weekend.”

No. 9 Westlake (21-16) will play a three-game series at District 3-3A rival No. 1 Kinder, starting at 6 p.m. Friday. Game 2 will be 11 a.m. Saturday with a third game, if necessary.

“They are talented,” Reed said. “The best part of it for us is we are not supposed to win. We are playing with house money. They are the No. 1 team in the division. They have the LSU commit (Griffin Cooley) in center field. They have three, four or five guys that are probably going to play college ball.

“We are not supposed to be here, so I think that does help us out a little bit. We can play more relaxed and the pressure is on them. I think our guys are excited.”