Student-Athlete of the Week: Morgan Daugherty

On Nov. 13 at the Class 4A state championships, senior Morgan Daugherty played her final match in a Niwot volleyball uniform, ending a short but highly impactful career. In two seasons for the Cougars, the left-handed six-footer provided a powerful threat as an opposite side hitter, ending with 337 kills and 47 blocks, second only to fellow senior Zoe Gibbs. Earlier that week, Daugherty signed a letter of intent to continue her playing days at the South Dakota School of Mines, becoming Niwot's seventh collegiate volleyballer since 2017. All of which is especially impressive considering she only had a glancing familiarity with the sport until ninth grade.

"I started my freshman year on the D team at Silver Creek," she said. "I transferred to Niwot my sophomore year, and then started playing club, and everything went from there."

Daugherty decided on the change after Silver Creek's head coach departed during her freshman season, leaving the ninth-grader a little bereft. She has no regrets about making the transition to Niwot, however, and has been very happy as a Cougar, both on and off the volleyball court.

"The people here are so much better for the type of person I am," she said. "They're super academically focused here, and push academics onto their students. It's such a good, supportive environment."

For Niwot head volleyball coach Daisha Agho, Daugherty's transfer was like the answer to a prayer, even if the gawky left-hander was still a work in progress.

"I actually met her in the hallway, just doing a tour, and my dreams came true right at that moment," Agho recalled. "She was a little bit behind in her development when we got her, and rightfully so, she wasn't quite into her body, and was trying to figure out how to be a lefty being as tall as she was."

But it didn't take too long before her natural talent took over, and the "lefty" was bringing a dimension to the program that it had lacked since 2018.

"Every rotation, we have a strong hitter in the front row, and it's given us that dynamic," she said. "Teams have to pay attention to the right side. We're lucky enough to have very strong attack modes that they have to keep track of."

Daugherty was clearly one of Niwot's keys to success in the recently concluded 2021 campaign, which saw the Cougars advance to the Class 4A state semifinals after amassing a 20-3 regular season mark and capturing the Longs Peak League championship, the first conference title since 2018. The senior had 222 kills on the year, which was sixth overall in the league, and she nearly doubled her total blocks, to 42 from 25 as a junior. In Niwot's state run, she had 40 kills in four matches, as well as 19 digs. But more than that, she provided a boost in leadership, Agho said.

"The energy that kid brings to us is amazing. When she gets fired up, she gets the team going, and the other side can't do anything about it. I've talked about this being a dream team, and they really are. She's brought out other pieces that have been missing for a couple of years."

After graduating in May, Daugherty will be taking that energy and her hard hitting to Rapid City, S.D., where she will be joining the Hardrockers volleyball squad, which just ended the 2021 season with a 12-14 record. She plans to study health sciences at South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, following in the footsteps of her heart surgeon grandfather.

"The school is a great match for me because of my major, and also the [NCAA] Division II level is just where I want to be," she said. "Before this came up, I didn't think I wanted to play in college, because I want to go into pre-med, and I thought that it would be too hard to also play volleyball and balance that. But I talked to the School of Mines, and they're super understanding because it's a STEM school. They understand that your academics do come first, you're a student athlete for a reason, and that's what pushed me to want to play in college."

When she's not on the court for Niwot or her club team, or studying for an AP exam, Daugherty likes spending time with her friends and family.