Half Hollow Hills West makes most of second chance to advance to southeast regional final in girls volleyball
Autumn Fichtelberg of Half Hollow Hills West dives for the dig during a Southeast Class AA girls volleyball sub-regional against Jericho on Wednesday, Nov. 11, 2026 in Garden City. Credit: Dawn McCormick
Half Hollow Hills West knows it was given a second chance and it’s confident it can make the most of it.
Half Hollow Hills West defeated Nassau champion Jericho, 25-21, 25-20, 25-20, in a Southeast Class AA sub-regional at Nassau Community College on Wednesday afternoon.
Jericho (14-4) defeated Division in the county final, while Hills West lost in five sets to Smithtown East and received an at-large bid. Hills West (17-4) will face the winner of Yorktown (Section I)/Cornwall (Section IX) in the southeast regional final on Saturday.
“The volleyball gods gave us another chance,” junior Autumn Fichtelberg said. “We’re still here and we want it so bad. We came here and our goal was to get ourselves another day.”
Jericho jumped out to a 10-4 lead in the first set, getting two kills from Amy Zhang, one from Sonia Ngai and an ace from Eva Brown. Hills West quickly found its footing and went on a 10-1 run, taking a 14-11 lead after Ella Corso’s ace and Emily Dantona’s kill.
“We needed to settle in. We tend to make some errors early trying to kill every ball,” Hills West coach Nils Haugen said. “When the opportunity isn’t there, we need to be smart. That’s what we focused on early.”
Jericho tied it at 16 after Alanna Gill’s back-to-back kills. Gabby Williams’ kill and ace gave Hills West a two-point advantage and Dantona’s two kills later ended the set.
“Bringing it in and taking two deep breaths helped us settle in,” Williams said. “We just had to say okay, we got this. We reset things and it brought us back.”
Fichtelberg opened the second set with an ace and Hills West held a 15-8 lead on Dantona’s ace. Dantona had kills for the final two points of the set. She finished with 10 kills and two blocks.
“We’ve been in big games like this before, so we know what to expect,” Fichtelberg said. “We can just look at those moments from the past and use them to our advantage.”
Hills West took a 9-6 lead after back-to-back blocks from Dantona and Williams. It grabbed a 19-14 lead on Corso’s kill. Jericho pulled within 22-20 on Gill's kill, but Corso's final kill gave Hills West match point and an error ended it.
“We tried to put the last game behind us,” Williams said. “Acknowledge the loss but move on from it and push toward this game.”
Corso finished with nine kills, three aces and a block. Williams added four kills, three aces and five digs. Fichtelberg had nine digs and Lex Ferguson tallied 21 assists.
“We’ve been calling this our second season,” Haugen said. “We know we’re a good team and we deserve to still be playing. We’re happy we got the opportunity to go out and prove that today.”
Christopher Matias covers high school sports for Newsday after spending time in Athletic Facilities and Operation at St. John’s and in Sports Information at CUNY York college.
