Jumping out of the gym: Haggard’s Vertical will be Vital for Baylor Volleyball

It's no secret to anyone who has seen Baylor Volleyball’s Isabela Haggard that she can jump out of the gym.

While being 6-foot-0 as a setter is no slouch, the Marquette transfer posts some of the best verticals in the program.

Having that much bounce has felt like it’s been instilled in her for as long as she can remember, not only being a tri-athlete, but also weekly garage workouts that have paid off.

“Growing up, my sister played volleyball, and our volleyball gym was right next to the gymnastics gym, and I think that's kind of how that started,” Haggard said. “And I wanted to do that, so I started gymnastics.”

Haggard, a Lexington, Kentucky native, spent just as much time on the volleyball court as she did in the gymnastics gym, pacing back and forth from one side of the street to the other for practice every day for years.

She would spend the first two hours going to the gym, then would walk over to volleyball for another two hours. She’d take a U-turn back to gymnastics for the final hour.

“I was super busy as a kid, but I loved it,” Haggard said.

Due to the varying athletic challenges of gymnastics, she feels gymnasts are some of the best and most well-rounded athletes.

“You're getting pushed to do the splits, and then you're getting pushed to jump super high for vault,” Haggard said. “And then you're also weight training. I think I give almost all of my athletic background to gymnastics for sure. I think it rooted me as a person in a whole and just being able to do four different events and then strength training on top of it was super cool.”

As she got older, more sports came beckoning as once high school came around, the track and field coach asked her to come compete.

“I went to practice, and I loved it,” Haggard said. “I went one day a week, and I would just jump on that day, and I don't know. I just am so competitive that it is such an eternal drive to just be so great. If I'm gonna do something, I need to be great at it.” 

She won state her freshman year in the long jump and held the top score in that and the triple jump that season.

Her personal record of 38 feet, three inches in the triple jump from high school would rank ninth in Marquette women’s track and field history.

Her elite vertical skills also came through working in a garage once a week for years, working with her dad.

“I had these bands that would go around your waist, and then it's bands that pull you down to your ankles, and then you have Velcro on the ankles, and I would do block moves every Sunday,” Haggard said. 

Her workout also included other jump training drills and block moves. Haggard claims she’s worked on all of that so much that she feels it's engraved in her.

“I'm just so grateful that I did work on it because I would be nowhere near the player I am without my vertical,” Haggard said.

On the volleyball court, she spent her high school career rotating between outside hitter and setter before finally settling on setter as she entered college.

“My freshman and senior year, I hit, and then my sophomore and junior year, I was just a setter,” Haggard said. “But for my club team, who won the national championship, I also hit on that team.”

Baylor head coach Ryan McGuyre has already seen her impact through the Bears’ spring matches, alongside practices.

“She's in the gym more than anybody on the team for sure,” he said. “She's competitive and pretty fearless out there … She’s asserted herself really well as a strong block. I remember the spring match against UTSA; I just said, ‘Hey, first time outside boom, got it.’ She plays with that emotion too, so those blocks are going to definitely ignite us ... I think offensively, she's one that's not afraid of attacking and scoring, and I think does a good job with their decisions, and when that jumping ability comes into play, it just gives you a bigger range as a setter.”

Last season with the Golden Eagles, she earned co-Big East Freshman of the Year, averaging 9.32 assists per set and helped an offense that hit .257, good for second in the league.

With her proven background, McGuyre felt like she made the setter room even better, and the talent would translate to the Big 12.

“She said, ‘Hey, I already proved myself at Marquette, been battling and getting some time, so I'm not looking for a place that's going to guarantee me on the court, but one where I can get out there and compete,’” McGuyre said. “So that was exactly what I was looking forward to as well. We're playing to win. We want to put the best ones out there, and she's for sure getting after it.”

Haggard knew that Baylor had been a consistent Top 20 program when she entered the portal, and knowing what Coach McGuyre had done drew her even more to Waco.

“During my first phone call with Coach Mac, he asked me about my testimony, and I had honestly never combined volleyball and my faith. I was really thrown off guard,” Haggard said. “I was like, ‘Wait, he cares about that’, but it was super awesome, and honestly that was kind of a shell shock to me.”

Another key aspect was McGuyre’s buy-in in Haggard as a player, alongside her future as a potential professional.

“I feel like I am the extension of the coach, so just knowing that he has that trust in me, and also he believes in me past college,” Haggard said. “He wants me to do all these things, and he is a supporter of all of them. He wants me to play pro volleyball and to do all these things that maybe I hadn't thought about, but for him to be pushing is just so cool to me.”

Through McGuyre’s experience within the transfer portal, additions normally take at least the night to sleep on it and think about the right choice. That wasn’t the case with Haggard.

“We had our last breakfast, and she was on the way back to the airport, and I got a hold of her dad. I was able to speak to him for quite a while, and he shared all the values and things that he loved about Bela and what he wanted for her,” McGuyre said. “That gave her the opportunity to talk to him. I think she was just saying, "Dad, here's what I'm going to commit to, and probably wanted his blessing.”

Baylor was picked fourth in the Big 12 Preseason Media Poll, as announced on Tuesday, with outside hitter Ksenia Rakhmanchik making the All-Big 12 Team.

“We have a lot of pieces and a lot of depth that I'm super excited about going into this year,” Haggard said. “And I just personally think the Big 12 is one of the best volleyball conferences, so being able to compete against great teams every single game is also super.”

The No. 21 Bears already had an exhibition game against defending national champions Texas A&M and open their season in the Hawaiian Airlines Wahine Volleyball Classic against San Diego (RV) on Aug. 28 at 9 p.m.

“It was definitely a calling from God,” Haggard said. “I feel like the transfer portal is just so stressful, so I could have easily been like, ‘no, I'm doing this myself’, and then ended up in the wrong spot. But I really think I let go and let God take control, and he just led me here. It was such a calling from Him, and I'm so thankful. I feel like these past eight months that I've been here are the closest I've ever been to God and the best I've ever been at volleyball. So those two going hand in hand in itself is just awesome.”