Hillsdale volleyball is unstoppable

Hillsdale (12-0 PAL Bay, 21-1 overall) is now on pace to maintain an undefeated league record with two matches to go, and has now won nine straight since falling at powerhouse Menlo School Sept. 18 in non-league action.

“We’re on top of the world,” Hillsdale senior Jessica Dean said, “Our team chemistry hasn’t ever been stronger in this program. We’re there for each other, we trust each other, and it makes me emotional just talking about it. I love these girls, they’re amazing. And our team chemistry is out of this world.”

Beyond the numbers is the way Hillsdale is doing it.

Late in the second set Tuesday, when Dean attempted to run down a scrappy serve receive and send it over the net, only to have the play whistled dead because her valiant attempt passed outside the sideline antenna, it marked the first hitting error of the match for the Knights. All told, Hillsdale finished the match with a remarkably low three hitting errors.

Dean finished with her usual double-double, going for a match-high 17 kills along with 14 kills. Her senior counterpart Victoria Vanos added a double-double with 16 kills and 14 digs, while notching a staggering .536 hitting percentage.

“Their hitting has been dynamic all year,” Hillsdale head coach Dwight Crump said.

Through 12 league matches, Hillsdale has dropped just three sets. The first time a Bay Division team took a set off the Knights was Sept. 23 at Burlingame, a showdown in which the fiery Panthers were full of energy in their home gym.

Tuesday’s rematch on Hillsdale’s turf was a different story.

“Our strategy going in was just have high energy because when we played them at Burlingame they were very pumped up and we ended up losing a set,” Vanos said. “That gave them a little more hope. But going into this game we knew it was our gym and we had to keep it that way, and we did exactly that.”

Hillsdale never let Burlingame (10-2, 19-6) in the match. The Knights took the wind out of the Panthers’ sails in the opening set, jumping out to a 5-0 lead. Game 2 was a similar script, with Hillsdale taking leads of 3-0 and 6-1. The only time Burlingame led all night was early in the third set 2-1, to which the Knights responded with a 4-0 run.

Dean put a scare into her team in Game 1. The senior standout was already nursing a sore ankle after tweaking it while landing on a teammate last Tuesday in a four-set win over Menlo-Atherton. After registering her first kill of the night Tuesday — a sideline-hugging laser off the left side — she came up limping after landing on a different teammate and tweaking her other ankle.

The scare was short-lived though. Dean shook off the pain, stayed in the game, and went on to dominate Game 1 by registering six more kills, a block and a service ace. She went on to play off Vanos beautifully, with the two working six rotations and leaving opponents with a choose-your-poison swagger in the front row while each offering lockdown defense in the back row.

“That started right away,” Crump said of the chemistry between the two four-year varsity seniors. “It wasn’t something that needed to be built over time. It started right away. They play club volleyball together so that chemistry was already there. And they’re the best friends in the world. So, when you’re best friends, your chemistry is seamless.”

Vanos later closed out the set with one of her four match aces. She went on to dominate the opening rotation of Game 2, earning 4 of the Knights’ first 5 points with three kills and an ace. Then senior Sophia Makarewycz got in on the fun with a block and two kills early in the set.

All the while, the Hillsdale defense was humming along. Senior libero Gwen Wong recorded a match-high 15 digs while junior setter Rainna Liu added 13 digs to go with her 25 assists.

“I’m going to say that our defense is our cornerstone of our success,” Crump said. “The defense as you saw here is just amazing. They were just all over the place. We were executing on every single cylinder. They wanted this bad, they wanted to stay undefeated, they knew they were going to have a fight with Burlingame, and it was just nice.”

Burlingame — the second-place team in the PAL Bay Division and coming off a tournament championship at Saturday’s Spikefest II — totaled just 17 team kills in the match. Freshman outside hitter Ella Duong and senior middle blocker Keegan Boyse shared the team-high with four kills apiece.