Rachel Torvik understood what she was getting herself into. She recognized that the task she accepted was going to be daunting, with the pitfalls possibly outweighing the rewards.

In the spring of 2018, Torvik was hired as head volleyball coach at Reagan High School. She was handed the reins of one of the nation’s top programs and was succeeding Mike Carter, the area’s winningest volleyball coach and the architect of a program where 40-win seasons and deep playoff ventures were the norms.

And Torvik didn’t have one ounce of trepidation. She was confident she could keep the Rattlers on a lofty perch.

“I think anytime you take over a program, there’s always a period of transition,” said Torvik, who came to Reagan after stints at Judson and S.A. Veterans Memorial, leading the former to three playoff appearances in five seasons. “I knew it was going to be tough because there was always that legacy of Mike Carter and all the wonderful things that he did for the school, the program and the community. But I embraced it and wasn’t going to waver from who I was.”

Torvik’s self-belief has paid off. In just her third season at the helm, Torvik has guided Reagan to the UIL Class 6A state semifinals for the first time since 2016 and the fourth overall. The team also made it in 2005 and 2006.

The Rattlers (21-3) face Katy Seven Lakes (23-1) at 5 p.m. Monday in UIL Class 6A state semifinals at Merrell Center in Katy.

Because of COVID restrictions, there isn’t a traditional UIL state tournament this year. The sites for semifinal matches were determined by the participants, while the state final will be contested Saturday at the Culwell Center in Garland.

“Even though we are glad that we did get to state, we all know that we’re not done yet,” said Reagan senior outside hitter Nyah Anderson, who is headed to the University of Miami. “We’re not just glad to be there. We didn’t just make it to state just to make it. We made it to win. That’s our goal.”

The objective was fostered a year ago in the aftermath of a stunning second-round playoff loss to Clemens.

On a chilly Friday morning in November 2019, Torvik and a coaching friend were leaving their hotel and headed for the Culwell Center to watch the UIL state volleyball tournament. For many coaches, the state tournament has for years been equal parts learning tool and respite, a way to gleam something helpful for their own teams while catching up with fellow coaches from around the state.

Clemens played Northwest Nelson that evening, and on the elevator Torvik lamented about how it could have been her team playing on the big stage had things been different. Reagan lost to Clemens in five sets, squandering a 2-0 advantage.

“It gave me the fuel to work hard every single day,” Torvik said. “I knew we were maybe one unforced errors there, one hitting error there, service error there, whatever the error may have been, from being able to be successful and beating Clemens in the third or fourth set. (The players) really didn’t want to feel that same disappointment and sting to their chest.”

With the loss as a motivational backdrop, the Rattlers went to work during the offseason. They weren’t even deterred when a coronavirus pandemic essentially forced players to work on their skills and conditioning on their own for months.

The prospects of having a season remained in doubt over the summer as the pandemic’s impact spread across the nation. In late July, the UIL announced that 6A and 5A volleyball teams could begin preseason workouts on Sept. 7. The season kicked off a week later and will end this Saturday, the first time since 1979 that a season will conclude in December.

Reagan started the season by winning 13 of its first 14 matches, including nine in sweeps.

“We hated that feeling (of the loss to Clemens),” said Reagan senior libero Maddie Correa, a Texas Tech signee and the only holdover from the 2017 squad. “We didn’t want to have that again, so we had to keep our foot on the gas. Our past two seasons weren’t what were wanted and I think that helped us to work together and figure out that losing early (in the playoffs) was not an option for us because we knew our potential.”

It wasn’t until after the Rattlers suffered their second District 28-6A loss to Brandeis on Oct. 30, though, that the impetus to truly fulfilling their promise occurred. The team tweaked some things, with the biggest being that the squad were less reliant on senior outside hitters Julia Aleman and Anderson to provide much of the attacking punch and emphasizing more balance.

“We knew that there was stuff that we were going to have to fix and change to get better,” Correa said. “It was definitely an eye-opening experience for us. We knew that we had to be more than a one-dimensional team. We needed to get everybody involved, and not for the ball to be set to just one person or two people. We knew that each person on the team was going to play a key role. We were very predictable.”

Since the changes, Reagan has won eight of nine matches, including defeating defending Region IV-6A champion Clemens in bidistrict, unbeaten Austin Lake Travis and O’Connor in the regional quarterfinals and regional semifinals, respectively, and Brandeis in the regional final. The emergence of sophomores Chichi Ozigbo and Katie Hill and freshman Preslie Yates was integral to the turnaround. Ozigbo had the match-winning kill vs. O’Connor, Hill sparked a comeback after an opening-set setback to Brandeis and Yates had three blocks in the win against Austin Lake Travis.

“It feels really great because I know that I’m helping out my team, and I’m contributing to the amazing success that we’ve had throughout the season,” said Hill, who was moved from middle hitter to outside hitter to help the team’s offensive production. “I think that’s what helped us this time around because we got everyone involved. It was really spread out and even so they didn’t know where we were coming from. We’re strong in all positions. We can execute wherever we need to, and I think that was the main difference. It was like a day-and-night kind of situation.”

The contrast can also be seen in Torvik’s tenure at Reagan. One moment, she was taking over a program that had recorded 676 wins, 14 district titles, seven 40-win campaigns, three trips to the UIL state tournament, six appearances in a regional final and was coming off a season in which the team was ranked No. 1 nationally. The next, she was putting her imprint on a program that had graduated 12 seniors, including four who earned Division I scholarships, while assuring the aspirations would remind high.

“It was probably a challenge on her end,” said Paige Day, a sophomore outside hitter/defensive specialist at Texas Lutheran University who played on Torvik’s first team at Reagan in 2018. “We were ranked No. 1 in the nation (in 2017) and we had a great senior class that came through. I think when we all found out that she was going to be our new coach, I feel like we all were pretty excited. She has a great coaching style.”

That much is on display now as the Rattlers take on Katy Seven Lakes, which is in the state semifinals for the second time in the past four seasons. The Spartans defeated O’Connor in four sets in this round in 2017 before falling to Lewisville Hebron in the state final.

Ally Batenhorst, a 6-foot-4 senior outside hitter, leads Seven Lakes. She is the No. 2 overall prospect in the Class of 2021 by Prep Volleyball and signed with national power Nebraska. Batenhorst has 509 kills, a .344 hitting percentage, and 327 digs and accounts for 47 percent of her team’s kills. Batenhorst and Seven Lakes are the next tests for the Rattlers. They’ve past all of their exams with flying colors so far during the postseason.

“I feel like this year, it just shows just how much it means to us,” said Aleman, who is signed with St. Mary’s University. “We knew in the beginning of March and April what was going on and we kept ourselves working on.”

terrence@terrencesports.com
Twitter: @sa_terrence1