Liz Brieva has been named new head volleyball coach at her Evanston Township High School alma mater.
Brieva, who for the last 10 years has tirelessly served as the face of a community program aimed at restoring athletic programs to area middle schools, replaces Mallory Thelander, who coached the school to a 28-45 mark over the last two seasons before resigning to take over at Loyola Academy.
A 1982 Evanston grad, Brieva played both basketball and volleyball at the school before attending the University of Tulsa, where she also played both sports. Since 2014, she has served as an assistant coach for both girls and boys’ high school programs and four of her seven children have played volleyball at ETHS. She has also coached at the elementary and middle-school level.
Liz Brieva
“Coach Brieva has been an unbelievable force for good in our community,” Evanston Athletic Director Chris Livatino told Evanston Now. “She is an extremely passionate and energetic coach who cares deeply for her players. She will not only develop the best ETHS volleyball team possible, she will grow the sport of volleyball throughout the entire Evanston community and will develop the girls of our program into outstanding young women.”
Brieva maintains she’s had the greatest motivation for becoming so involved.
“I couldn’t complain anymore; I had to do something as a parent,” she said. “I worked with Chris and got some of the parents together and we tried to come up with a plan. I’ve also worked with Chris and his wife Megan in the Girls Play Sports program. I love kids, I love Evanston and I love the game of volleyball. I’m very excited to have the opportunity to build a stronger program at ETHS.”
Brieva is set to welcome back Wildkits players Rosemary Gibbons, Rileigh Farragher, Siena Prokopenko and Maddie Patke next season; and believes they are on the verge of turning the corner after finishing 17-19 last year.
“Most of our returning seniors are multi-sport athletes, and most of the juniors are straight volleyball players, so we’ll have a nice mix there,” she said. “This is a very competitive, strong and confident group of girls. They’re all very motivated and the juniors are a very unique group because they all eat, sleep and dream about volleyball.”
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