OPRF Volleyball Star Headed to Boston

Rather than walk across a stage for graduation, Jill Briner prefers tuning up her volleyball game.

The Oak Park resident was a four-year varsity starter at as a setter and right side hitter. Team captain during her senior year, she was MVP her last two years and All-Conference her last three.

In the fall, she’ll attend Northeastern University in Boston on a full athletic scholarship to play Division-I NCAA volleyball. Part of the Colonial Athletic Conference, the Northeastern Huskies team finished second in its conference last year.

So on June 12, when graduation day coincided with a pre-nationals tournament, and Briner’s family let her decide which event to attend, picking volleyball seemed like an obvious choice.

“Going to the tournament helped my future plans more than graduation would have,” she said. “I want to start playing again right away after high school and that tournament helped me at Nationals.”

And it definitely did seem to help.

Last week, as team captain Briner led the defending national champion 1st Alliance Black team, based in LaGrange, to a second-place finish out of 101 teams at the 38th AAU Girls’ Junior National Volleyball Championships in Orlando. Her team played 13 matches in four days, winning the first twelve consecutive matches.

The championships took place from June 14-22. After the tournament, Briner was picked to be a part of the AAU Club All-American Team.

In 2009, with the Mizuno Sports Performance 16 Red team, Briner’s team took second place. She was selected as part of the AAU Club All-American that year as well.

When she gets to Northeastern, she said she’s going to try to help the team get as far as possible.

“My goal is to play, but I want to win conference,” Briner said. “Last year the (NEU) Huskies got second place in the conference, and that’s just not going to do it for me. I hate losing. I want to go to the NCAA Tournament.”

When asked if she’d go back and change any aspect of her standout high school volleyball career, Briner said she’d probably appreciate it more.

“I also would have been a better leader than I was,” she said, “and tried to make my team even better.”