Tori Fowler is in her third season as head coach at Indian Hills, taking over for Terry Carlson, who resigned following the 2004 season. She is the third varsity volleyball coach at Indian Hills. The IHCC coach has a match record of 54-31 after two years at the helm for a winning percentage of .635.
Indian Hills returned only one starter to the 2006 team, Fowler's second as head coach, and the young Warriors ended the year with a 16-25 record. They entered the season ranked 18th in the NJCAA preseason poll. Their season came to an end in the Region XI postseason tournament when the Warriors lost to eventual national champion Iowa Western.
Fowler's first team at Indian Hills finished 38-6 and earned the school's second consecutive trip to the national tournament where the Warriors took home the 5th place trophy. Half of the six losses for the year came in a Labor Day tournament in Salt Lake City, Utah. After winning their first two matches in that tourney, the Warriors dropped decisions to North Idaho, Missouri State - West Plains and College of Southern Idaho. Missouri State - West Plains and Southern Idaho would later join Indian Hills in the national tourney field. IHCC ended their stay in Salt Lake with two wins, one of them over Hutchinson (KS) CC, another national tournament qualifier.
Those two victories started the Warriors on an 18-match winning streak that included perfect showings at tournaments in Panama City, Florida and Sedalia, Missouri. Iowa Western ended IHCC's long win streak. But the Warriors then won six straight matches before dropping a 3-1 match to Missouri State - West Plains.
In the postseason, Indian Hills knocked off Iowa Western 3-0 to win the Region XI tournament and then won nine of ten games in taking the District C tournament on their home court. Their victims in the district tournament were Black Hawk East and Lake Land, two Illinois schools.
At the national tournament, Indian Hills beat San Jacinto (TX) 3-1 in the opening round before dropping a 3-2 decision to Western Nebraska. IHCC recovered to finish 5th with back-to-back wins over University of Arkansas - Fort Smith and Blinn College. Both were five-set thrillers.
Two of Fowler's sophomores took home individual honors from the national tourney. Olesya Bakhareva won both the Top Gun and Top Point Maker Awards and Jill Hoeck was the recipient of the Top Setter Award.
Fowler is a native of Cuba City, Wis., where she was a standout athlete at Cuba City HS. She received numerous all-conference, all-region and all-state honors in basketball, track and volleyball and was a part of conference championship teams in all three sports. In volleyball, Fowler was the conference MVP and all-conference, all-area, all-region and all-state.
Fowler was a four-year starter in volleyball at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville. There, she was an Academic All-American and all-conference selection and played for a conference championship team as a senior. Her UW-Platteville squad had a 32-game winning streak during Fowler's senior season and advanced to the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Division III playoffs. She left college as the school's career record-holder in digs and once had 54 digs in a match against Colorado College.
Fowler began her teaching career in Webster, Wisc., as the assistant volleyball and head basketball coach. She took over the head volleyball position her final three years at Webster HS and led her squad to a second-place finish in the conference all three years.
Fowler then returned to the college ranks as a graduate assistant at the University of Wisconsin-LaCrosse. Her final year at UW-LaCrosse saw the volleyball team win the conference title and make it to the final eight of the NCAA tournament. The new IHCC coach obtained her bachelor's degree from the University of Wisconsin-Platteville and has master's degrees in Physical Education/Teaching and Human Performance from UW-LaCrosse.
At Indian Hills, Fowler takes over a program that has reached unprecedented heights the past three years. Last year, the Warriors had a sparkling 41-3 record, won the Region XI and District C titles and qualified for the school's first-ever national tournament appearance. They wound up third at the national tourney. The 2002 squad won a record 44 games. Indian Hills has gone 113-18 over the past three seasons.
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