TORRINGTON – Torrington High School senior Emily McGaugh announced her plans to continue her athletic career at Dakota State University last Friday.
DSU is a four-year National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) institution located in in Madison, S.D.
McGaugh will join both the volleyball and softball teams at Dakota State.
She had her eye on Dakota State and its business program since the fall, and during her visit to the school, McGaugh was able to conduct a workout with the volleyball team.
In addition to the volleyball workout, she was able to meet up with the softball coach to discuss the possibility of being a two-sport athlete.
“In August, I will move in and begin workouts with the volleyball girls and be a part of the volleyball team,” McGaugh said. “Then when the second semester starts, I’ll be fully committed to the softball team. It’ll be one sport per semester pretty much.”
McGaugh started playing volleyball in seventh grade, and by her sophomore season at Torrington, had worked her way into the varsity team’s starting lineup anchoring the back row as a libero.
McGaugh tallied 113 digs last season for the 15-5 Blazers. She also served up 12 aces with a 93.5% serve rate and 105 service points.
“The girls are very uplifting. They pushed me to be my best,” McGaugh said. “By them doing that, I wouldn’t have even thought about reaching out to colleges.”
She will continue to be a libero/defensive specialist at the next level.
Meanwhile, McGaugh’s summers were occupied with travel with the Twisters Fastpitch softball team.
“Softball is one of my sports since I was really little,” McGaugh said. “Just the thrill of hitting the ball or throwing the ball as hard as you can is just extremely enjoying to me.”
McGaugh anchored third base for the Twisters but expects a move to a middle infield or outfield position in college.
McGaugh plans to major in cyber forensics with a possible minor in criminal justice.
“Dakota State is a high techy school and have brand new cyber labs that were put in in 2019,” she said. “With that, they get a lot of people in from the CIA, NIA, FBI for interviews.”
McGaugh hopes to get her foot in the door through that and possibly work at a Naval base for counter terrorism.
