Southwest Guilford star switched to volleyball from swimming throughout COVID pandemic

HIGH POINT-Isabelle Tran credits the COVID-19 for her transition from swimmer to the current area high school assist leader in volleyball.

Tran was hungry for social interaction during the pandemic. That’s when she saw one of her neighbors, Rachel Cruess, a former Southwest Guilford setter and right side hitter, playing volleyball outside.

“I think without COVID I would have never started volleyball,” Tran said. “COVID was the reason why I had to stop doing swim, and I think just with COVID, I would be outside a lot with my neighbors. … Getting to spend time with family and my neighbors and my friends during COVID, it just really introduced me to the sport.”

Her friends Neala Bateson and Keely Vadka encouraged her to go out for the Southwest Middle School team. She showed up without a position and unable to get a serve in play.

She had her dad buy her a volleyball serving rebounder, allowing her to serve over and over again without having to go back and forth collecting balls. If she wasn’t serving, she was setting.

She joined Piedmont Volleyball Club, with Page High head coach Tiana Taylor and Southwest assistant Kaiyah Haley being key coaches, and has stayed there since.

“All the coaches there were super supportive,” Tran said. “They taught me a lot of my skills that I still incorporate in my volleyball today, and just the consistency and showing up to practice every day there, it really helped.”

In her last year of club, she shifted to libero for the first time, an opportunity to grow as an all-around player.

“I think as a libero, you have to be one of the loudest people on the court, so it definitely helped me up my communication skills as a setter,” Tran said, “but also my hustle mentality too, just throwing myself around everywhere diving on the floor.”

The 5-foot-10 Tran developed into a Team MVP last year as a junior for the Cowgirls, who finished second in the Metro 6A/7A Conference and reached the third round of the state playoffs for the first time since 2006.

This season, the right side hitter and setter is eighth in the state with 488 assists, as the 16-3 Cowgirls enter Tuesday’s match against Smith in a tie for first place in the Metro 6A/7A at 6-1. Tran has 1,179 assists in her three-year varsity career.

On top of that, she is also second on the team in blocks with 29 and third on the team with 111 digs this year.

“Just the other day, my sister and my wife were like, ‘Izzy is a beast,'” said Southwest coach Allen Gray. “The stuff that she does on the court, it’s mind-boggling to see done. She puts in all the hard work. We have stayed after practice a lot during the summer. She has really earned the spotlight that she has right now, and she is a vocal leader and a pleasure to have on the court. She is a coach’s dream. …”

She says she takes joy in playing volleyball with her best friends.

“One of the biggest benefits I have received from playing volleyball is just the family and the community that has grown and we have created with Southwest,” she said. “I mean, I would have never formed these friendships with my coaches or teammates without it.”

Tran is the Cowgirls’ leader in other ways too. She is the team DJ before games, with her preferred pregame genre being country, even if she must flip to hip-hop when her teammates demand hype music.

Her favorite pre-game or pre-practice song is “Starting Over” by Chris Stapleton. Her motto, “No one wins afraid of losing,” is in the lyrics.

“I can’t be afraid to go for anything,” she said. “I just need to have that confidence too in every single move I do.”

Tran posts the most to the team’s unofficial TikTok account called South Goats, which since last year has averaged 10,168 views per post, including one post called “Media Day” post that has attracted 218.2K views. Others the team practicing, doing slip-and-slides, celebrating wins (“If we beat a team, we’ll get a little fun video out there”) and taking team outings to places like McDonald’s and Crumbl Cookies.

“I really like it because it also shows the school and any upcoming players that want to see what the day-to-day volleyball life almost looks like,” she said. “And it gives them an idea of what this team looks like, how our friendship looks and just the volleyball community looks in general.”

Tran likes the idea of playing volleyball collegiately but hasn’t received recruiting attention yet. Gray said colleges reach out to clubs more than school teams for recruiting purposes, but he believes she can make a college team much better and will be a tireless worker.

“It’s a decision that I need to make pretty soon, but basically wherever the wind takes me,” Tran said of her college choice.

She plays with the approach of having as much fun as possible without stress, “because at the end of the day, I’m playing something that I chose to do and something that I love doing, so I need to remind myself to just always have fun out there and spend the most time with my teammates.”

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This story was initially printed September 23, 2026 at 4:04 AM.