When Will Torrey Van Winden Play Volleyball Again
When Torrey Van Winden walked off Hermosa Beach on Sabbatum with a bronze medal in the USA Volleyball Collegiate Beach Championships, it capped quite a 2017-18 school year for the Cal Poly indoor and beach standout.
In the gym, she led Cal Poly to its best season in more than 2 decades every bit the Mustangs went xvi-0 in the Big West and made the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2007. And wouldn't you know it, just after Cal Poly beat Denver in the first round, it lost to UCLA.
Which happened to be Van Winden's former school.
Van Winden was a first-team All-Pac-12 reverse for UCLA as a freshman in 2016. On the beach in 2017, the 6-foot-iii production of Napa, Calif., was a central cog on the Bruins team that made it to the NCAA Title.
And and so she transferred to Cal Poly.
"Information technology'south the all-time decision that I ever fabricated," Van Winden said. "I'm and then much happier every bit a person, and a lot of the time the volleyball community can get sucked into what'south all-time for volleyball, but they forget what's all-time for the individual. I'm just actually, actually happy, I'chiliad evolving merely every bit much as a player equally I would have at UCLA, and I'm evolving 10 times more I would have every bit a person. I'yard actually happy."
Cal Poly is where her sis, Adlee, was already on the volleyball team, her 6-9 father, Jim, was a basketball game histrion, and her female parent was a standout volleyball player. The former Kelly Strand, who, along with her twin sis, Lisa Strand Ma'a (whose son, Micah, is a star setter for the UCLA men), was besides an outstanding pro beach thespian.
"A lot of people say, 'Oh, she just wanted to be with her sister,' which is a role of it, and information technology's astonishing that I'thou with my sister, but she actually had no influence," Torrey said. "I decided that I wanted to play dual sports, still be able to play indoor, and I wanted to play beach.
"At UCLA I wasn't getting the opportunity to exist as focused on embankment as I wanted to be. I was being pulled back to the indoor side of things. Embankment is my end goal, so I wanted to find a university that respected my indoor season as well as my goals and hereafter embankment career."
(It has to be noted that when UCLA won the NCAA championship May 6, four of its x embankment-team players were on UCLA's indoors team).
Van Winden said indoors coach Sam Crosson and embankment bus Todd Rogers work well together. Crosson also serves every bit Rogers' beach banana.
"A lot of these universities are butting heads with their athletes doing both, and (Rogers and Crosson) are all for information technology. They're simply 'Whatever is best for the athlete,' and plain you can't go wrong. Their academics and their location are just absolutely stunning, so I love it."
And Cal Poly was always in the the forefront.
"I grew up going to Cal Poly," Van Winden said. "So I knew about the university, I already loved it, but it was just the best fit for my major and I did want to stay in California. Then it actually came downwardly to the programs that allowed people to do both. I wasn't released to the Pac-12, and then I was a little handcuffed there, but I am just then happy."
Adlee recalled that the transfer decision started out as a joke.
"We had talked a lot near her time to come and her happiness. I admittedly love it, my friends and all the coaching," Adlee said. "She would talk to me, and I would say, 'Well, I love Cal Poly, yous're ever welcome here, everyone loves you hither.'
"Once she started to become unhappy, I started to hint, but it was more than of a joke at first. Just and so things got very serious when she was looking to transfer, and she was looking for more than of a dwelling house, and I think Cal Poly filled that for her."
The arrival of Torrey was no small thing for both volleyball programs at the San Luis Obispo school. Indoors, she averaged iv.83 kills per ready, second highest in plan history and 6th in the NCAA. She had 488 kills and hit .343, while the 6-i Adlee, who will be a senior, was second on the team with 336. Torrey was second on the team in blocks with 59, 5 solo, and added 23 aces for a team that went 27-3.
"At Cal Poly, it was a major shift, considering everyone was just and then grateful that I was at that place," Torrey said. "Everyone knows their roles, accepts their roles, and is supportive every bit a staff and every bit a squad. I was so grateful that they were really, really receptive to reach that this flavor. Everyone was entirely on board that unabridged flavor, we grinded out butts off, and plain we didn't end on the finish that we wanted, but it was a corking season."
Appropriately, both Van Windens got AVCA All-American honorable mentions and Torrey was a VolleyballMag.com honorable mention.
So on the beach, Cal Poly had its best year ever, improving from 15-23 in 2017 to 27-7 in 2018. The Mustangs finished a programme-best fourth in the final AVCA Beach Poll prior to NCAA selection. They were not, however, invited to the NCAA beach field of eight.
That didn't sit down well with Van Winden.
"I think that our finish-of-the-flavor loss against Long Beach kind of solidified that we weren't going to get. I mean at that place's that concluding little glimmer of hope, but we did have a actually great season and we were just really bummed well-nigh not going. I was more bummed that neither Cal Poly nor Long Embankment was able to go. Long Beach deserved a spot in that tournament every bit well.," Van Winden said.
"The game is still evolving, and the collegiate game is still very raw. And so I call up that at that place are definitely some mistakes in whoever decided that only based off of records and rankings. I think that in the futurity that has to modify or information technology tin't be called a national title. It needs to be chosen an invitational tournament from the due east and the due west because information technology came downward to them wanting to have the east and the west both represented.
"But information technology's the NCAA, the best of the best, it's not everyone gets a chance. We were pretty bummed about that, to exist quite honest, and I know that'due south pretty edgeless, but I recollect people accept to start recognizing that, and respecting that, considering they're taking opportunities abroad from athletes who deserve them.
Van Winden and Canadian teammate Tiadora Miric went 19-viii this flavor as the No. i pair. Adlee and Taylor Nelson and went 25-3 at No. 3.
Rogers, who was on the NCAA beach selection committee, said Torrey Van Winden makes her teammates better.
"She's plainly a great player," Rogers said. "That kind of goes without saying."
But Rogers said her intensity on the court, both in practice and matches, sets the tone.
"I retrieve it was an introduction to the next level of sports for a lot of her teammates at SLO, which tin exist difficult, and has been hard at times, simply I remember that'southward an splendid affair," Rogers said. "Because coming from the coach is i thing, but when it comes from a player it's another thing, and not everyone has that intensity. But it's what'due south needed if you want to be successful, in my opinion."
Van Winden and Miric won the Large West pairs title this yr. But since Miric is Canadian, Van Winden played the Us Volleyball Collegiate Beach with Cal Poly sophomore teammate Emily Sonny, who is also from California.
"Emily and I had never played together until Thursday," Van Winden said. "We didn't get to train together at all, then nosotros were only super happy … Emily and I are both blockers, so we carve up block. Neither of u.s. accept ever played defense in our lives, let alone at the collegiate level."
They won both their pool-play matches on Thursday and won three playoff matches earlier losing to LSU'due south Claire Coppola and Kristen Nuss in the concluding.
Now Torrey and Adlee will be dorsum together for ane more school twelvemonth, which suits Kelly Van Winden just fine. She said she's happy to bulldoze to just one school to meet her daughters play.
Torrey'south indoor ambitions are strong, simply her main focus is on the sand.
"I don't want to go my expectations too high for myself, just I just accept this crazy passion for beach volleyball that I don't take on the indoor side of things, and I don't think that's anything to be aback of," she admitted.
"It'southward only what I prefer. My stop goal for collegiate would be to become to Gulf Shores (and the NCAA tournament), medal there, and then for my professional person career, hopefully to go jump-started on the AVP.
"I'm in the pipeline for USA Volleyball youth and promise to get picked up past somebody for a partner. I don't really know, I don't have whatever fix plans yet, but I guess the end goal would be the Olympics. It'southward out of my reach as of correct now, but who knows?"
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Source: https://volleyballmag.com/torrey-vw-051418/
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