Hannah and Hailee Herc have never walked in each other’s shadow.

As they grew up and found success in sports, the accomplishments of the identical twin sisters were shared and never one-sided. Both have always had someone to work with on improving and strive to stay equals with - each other.

While Hailee became a three-sport standout and exceptional student-athlete at Eden High School, including being a huge part of a dominant varsity volleyball program, so did Hannah. Of course, there are differences in the way they play the games and even one of their sports (both also play basketball but in the spring, Hannah plays softball and Hailee runs track), but the results have been basically the same.

Now, the same can be said for the beginning of their lives after high school. On Dec. 5 at the high school, Hannah signed to play Division I volleyball at Kent State and Hailee did the same to play at Stoneybrook.

“We push each other a lot to be better,” Hailee said. “I always wanted to make sure I was just as good as her.”

“She’s the only person on the team that I’ll actually yell at,” Hannah added.

“That’s why I didn’t make them a setter and a hitter,” joked their volleyball coach, Stephen Pierce.

While that competitiveness may have made the two even better athletes, their mother, Heidi, said it was never talked about at home. If anything, it was a silent competitiveness. More than anything, the two worked with each other to get better.

“It was kind of neat that they always had a practice partner at home with equal talent and of equal stature,” their father, John, said. “They were constantly knocking the ball around outside.”
Together, the pair have made huge contributions to a volleyball program that recently won its record seventh state title. The two played on opposite sides of the court as outside hitters. Hannah has a smooth right-handed stroke and Hailee is deceptively quick, coming from the other side as a hard-hitting lefty.

Pierce said the two year-round players, who also compete with Niagara-Frontier Club, were not only big-time players for the past two seasons but leaders for the team and role models that were respected at the school and even around the state.

“One of our club coaches said that they are two perfect examples of the kind of kids we want representing the club and Western New York volleyball,” Pierce said. “They’re the kind of players that embody what we’re trying to produce here.”

Hailee said it was coaches like Stephen Pierce and his brother, Robert, who heads the school’s boys program, that helped her and her sister get to this level.

“Being able to have these coaches and go off to camps where they’re there was a big part of making us so much better players,” Hailee noted.
Being a part of the Eden program also provided opportunities that not every high school volleyball player gets at this level.

“The team is like another family for us,” Hannah said. “We all constantly push each other to make ourselves better.”

The combination of the two made the twins that much more disciplined student-athletes, according to their mother.

The Hercs got a letter or two from the same schools with interest in having them both play volleyball there, but Hannah said they decided to go their separate ways for college. Hailee insisted that was Hannah’s decision, but the two agreed that they both fell in love with different schools.

Hannah had a good feeling from the first time she went to Kent State, while Hailee fell for Stoney Brook’s close proximately to New York City and what it offered athletically and academically. She will be given a full scholarship to attend, while Hannah’s scholarship is still being worked out.

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