Former Revere volleyball standouts make mark as collegians

by Sheldon Ocker

Close friends Viktoria Farian and Erinn Kahoe were senior teammates on the Revere High School volleyball team in 2016.

What a difference two years make. Then again, not so much. Farian was recently named Athlete of the Year in the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference and first team all-league as a sophomore on the Seton Hill University volleyball team.

Kahoe, a sophomore volleyball player for Slippery Rock University, was named second team All-PSAC and led her team in blocks and service aces.

Farian and Kahoe have reached different levels of achievement at different schools. But in other ways, their choices have kept them together. They attend schools only 81 miles apart in Western Pennsylvania, and they both play volleyball in the same conference.

“We’re best friends,” Farian said. “We’ve played nine or 10 seasons of volleyball with each other or against each other. I talk to her every day.”

“All the time,” confirms Kahoe.

Farian and Kahoe were opponents this season, too.

“It was weird, because we know each other so well; we know each other’s tendencies,” Farian said. “She blocked me [on a shot] but I didn’t get mad. There’s no trash talking. We might smile at each other.”

Being friends can be motivation to play harder.

“It definitely gives me an edge to push harder,” Kahoe said. “She’s one of my good friends, but I want to beat her.”

Kahoe’s parents, who live in Richfield, travel to most of Slippery Rock’s games.

“Both girls get really locked in,” said her father, Jim Kahoe. “Erinn doesn’t know that anybody else is around during a match. Both of them have ‘A’ personalities.”

Kahoe said one reason she took up volleyball is because Farian did.

“We were always good friends growing up,” Kahoe said. “My friends were trying volleyball in seventh grade. And because Viktoria was going to try it, I decided to go for it, too.”

Only two other Seton Hill students have ever won conference athlete of the year honors, neither of them volleyball players

“It’s a very big honor, especially for a sophomore,” said Seton Hill head coach Rick Hall. “She is a very strong outside hitter and blocker. She was the school’s Player of the Week four times and conference Player of the Week three times. Viktoria does everything. She never leaves the court, and she has a great mind for the game.”

Having won its conference tournament, Seton Hill qualified for the NCAA tournament.

Farian led the team in kills and points and was second in digs (and sixth in the conference). But her contributions can’t be summed up by statistics alone.

“She’s one of our captains [there are four],” Hall said. “The others are seniors.”

Hall said the coaching staff chose the captains, but “the team would have picked her, too.”

Said Farian, “I was very surprised.”

Farian, a biology major, has already been accepted to an osteopathic medical school.

“I’ve kind of been looking at emergency room medicine and maybe anesthesiology,” she said. “But I don’t know if I want to do that. I have to be doing something all the time.”

Apparently that includes studying.

“She’s a very good student; I think her GPA is 3.87,” Hall said. “She’s also a great kid. I hope that comes across in the article.”

Like Farian, Kahoe has a handle on her future. A finance major, she worked over the summer for her father, who owns an insurance agency.

And instead of spending her five-week winter break at home, Kahoe plans to work for a financial planner in Pennsylvania. “I would like to work all five weeks,” she said.

 

Featured image photo caption: Revere High graduate Viktoria Farian leaps to make a kill during a Seton Hill University volleyball match.