Whenever Hannah Hsieh is asked who her go-to hitter is, the New Trier girls volleyball coach is quick to say there isn’t one. Instead, the Trevians have plenty of capable options.
“It changes every match,” Hsieh said following the Trevians’ final conference game of the year on Oct. 18.
In the biggest match of the season to date, Hsieh called upon junior middle hitter Gillian Klise when New Trier’s lead began to dwindle late in the third set.
Hsieh drew up a play in a timeout to have junior Payton Hielscher quick set Klise down the middle, and it worked. Klise’s kill put the Trevians up four and stopped a 5-0 run by Hersey on Wednesday in the Class 4A New Trier Sectional final.
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New Trier held on to win 21-25, 25-12, 25-17 in Winnetka and advanced to the Lake Zurich Supersectional on Friday. The Trevians will face Crystal Lake Central with a trip to state on the line.
“We call a play so that we can focus the pass,” Hsieh said. “And we wanted her to get the ball to try and put it away. She’d been having a hot game, so we stayed with her.”
The kill was Klise’s 12th and final of the match and the Wilmette resident knew it was a pivotal one.
“It felt great,” said Klise, who led all players in kills. “I felt like I was on fire and Payton kept finding me.”
New Trier’s hopes of making it downstate were in a precarious position after it dropped the first set. The top-seeded Trevians (32-5) rebounded with a dominant performance in the second set and carried that momentum into third set. New Trier led 18-10 when second-seeded Hersey (28-9) began its push.
The Trevians, however, prevailed and continued their redemption tour after bowing out in the regional finals last season against Niles West.
Klise was one of several varsity rookies on last year’s team.
“I think we’re just a lot stronger and more experienced and deeper,” Hsieh said. “Obviously we had a lot of young players who hadn’t played in a varsity match on the floor last year and they just come with more experience this year, so they’re more steady and we can ride out surges that other teams put on and the girls stay calm and are able to play through that.”
Brett Christie is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.
Twitter @Pioneer_Press