Oak Ridge's Reagan Howe named Class 1 All-State

Oak Ridge volleyball junior Reagan Howe was named among the Class 1 All-State Team by the Missouri High School Volleyball Coaches Association on Wednesday, Nov. 15.

Howe was the centerpiece of a Blue Jays team that finished the season 16-12-1 and in the C1D4 championship game. She led the team with 365 kills, the eighth-best hitting percentage in the state at .399, and 56 blocks.

“She’s a force to be reckoned with,” Oak Ridge head coach Starla Pulley said on Oct. 21. “She's tall, and she's aggressive, and she wants the ball. The girls see that, and they feed off of that a lot on the front row. She definitely is someone that we go to and she definitely is a presence on the court for other teams.”

Howe improved from getting 190 kills as a freshman to ending her junior season with 500 career kills.

“She's really improved since last year, gotten a lot stronger and quicker, and just really has fallen in love with the sport,” Pulley said.

“When I first met her this season, she's like, ‘basketball’s my sport, coach.’ I'm like, Are you sure? And she just kind of fell in love with the sport,” Pulley said.

Howe is also the best player on the Oak Ridge girls' basketball team, who won 10 games for the first time in school history last year.

"Reagan Howe does an amazing job for us night in and night out," Oak Ridge basketball coach Julie Ward said at the end of the previous season. "She finds a way to score to help her team be successful. She is a great team player and a hard worker. The team counts on her to be one of the leaders on the floor."

The Blue Jays begin the girls' basketball season on Monday, Nov. 20 at home against St. Paul Lutheran.