New Trier’s Kieran Hutchison makes a play at the net during the semifinal sectional. PHOTOGRAPHY BY GEORGE PFOERTNER
New Trier senior outside hitter Kieran Hutchison had just downed a cup of water at the end of a timeout in a tense boys volleyball sectional semifinal last weekend.
The 6-foot-5 Trevian then crushed the paper cup with his right hand and shot it toward a garbage bin.
The makeshift basketball traveled about 10 feet.
It bounced off the bin rim.
It hit the floor.
Hutchison — without having to box out anybody — recovered the piece of litter along the sideline and slam-dunked it.
“The job was half done,” he would say later. “I couldn’t just leave the cup on the floor.
“I don’t like to do anything halfway.”
Hutchison and his teammates rebounded nicely on the court as well, overcoming a one-set deficit — and two Glenbrook South match points in the second set — to advance in the playoffs with a 24-26, 27-25, 25-19 victory.
The University of California-San Diego-bound Hutchison finished with eight kills in the New Trier Sectional semifinal.
And one unofficial assist, via laughter.
“We’re all in the huddle, during a timeout,” recalled New Trier senior middle hitter Jack Werd. “I think we were trailing, and Kieran starts to … laugh. Well, that makes the rest of us laugh. It was something we needed to do at that point in the match; it helped.
“Kieran,” he added, “is our most versatile player — great crosscourt [shot], terrific blocker. But he’s also always calm, super funny. You can tell how much he enjoys life.”
New Trier’s playoff life continued four days later, when the Trevians topped Glenbrook North 25-19, 20-25, 25-16 in the sectional final on May 30 and secured a fourth consecutive Elite Eight appearance.
NT (35-4) faces Lincoln-Way East in a state quarterfinal at Hoffman Estates High School on June 2, beginning at 11 a.m.
Hutchison registered a kill in NT’s loss to Glenbard West in the state championship game last spring. He had totaled 90 kills, 45 digs and 25 aces during the regular season and prior playoff matches as a back-up outside hitter to standouts Peter Hindsley and Henry Lindstrom.
Hutchison spent a great deal of last summer honing his game at Adversity, a Vernon Hills-based volleyball club. Gillson Park Beach served as his other destination for volleyball.
It was on sand — as a youngster growing up in Arizona — where Hutchison’s volleyball career started.
“My parents were playing beach volleyball with other adults one day, and I kept bothering, bothering, bothering them,” he said. “My sister [Brianna] wanted to play, too.
“Finally, they let me play.”
He would play soccer, as a goalkeeper, at New Trier before ending that sports tenure in his sophomore year.
Four Trevians made the all-Central Suburban League South boys volleyball team this spring, and one of them is the one who needs to work on his paper-cup jumper.
“His down-the-line shots … very good, can hit the lines,” New Trier coach Sue Ellen Haak said of Hutchison. “He’s also super calm, controlled, and he has this way of being able to relax everybody around him.
“Kieran,” he added, “has a surfer’s easygoing attitude. He’d fit right in as a character in that Point Break movie.”
New Trier senior outside hitter Billy Fauntleroy broke Glenbrook South’s collective spirit twice at the end of the second set of that sectional semifinal on May 26. South was up a set and 24-23 and 25-24. A kill from the USC-bound Fauntleroy knotted matters each time. Fauntleroy ended up with a team-high 10 kills against the Titans (25-12).
Trevians senior setter Niko Gjaja lofted 40 assists; junior outside hitter Brian Kaiser struck six kills and popped for four blocks; senior libero Ruben Greenstein — a future volleyball player at Queens University in Charlotte, North Carolina — had a team-high 17 digs, and senior Joe Lim delivered three aces, including one that clinched the 27-25 second set.
Fauntleroy, Princeton-bound Gjaja and junior middle hitter and Loyola University recruit Joe D’Attomo also earned all-CSL South honors.
Notable: New Trier assistant boys volleyball coach Dick Dreis, in his 50th year of coaching, on NT senior outside hitter Kieran Hutchison: “He has really good touch, and when he sees a hole in a block [scheme], he hits it through it.” … Trevians junior middle hitter James Snyder sang the national anthem before the start of the New Trier-Glenbrook South sectional semifinal on the home floor May 26. … The father of New Trier head boys volleyball coach Sue Ellen Haak is former Niles West football coach Bill Richardson.