Valparaiso senior Raegan O’Halek joked about her contributions to a team that has won its first regional title since 2004.
The 6-foot-1 forward/center noted the energy of teammates like sophomore guards Lillian Barnes and Cadynce Clark and senior forward/center Becca Gerdt.
“I feel old as a senior,” O’Halek said with a laugh. “I’ve just been trying to keep up with these girls. We have Lilli, we have Cadynce, all of these younger girls. Becca’s doing her thing. I’m just trying to keep up.”
But O’Halek has more than kept up for Valparaiso (19-7), which will play No. 17 Noblesville (17-8) in the semifinals of the Class 4A LaPorte Semistate on Saturday. That’s particularly true at the top of the Vikings’ 1-3-1 zone.
“We don’t run it traditionally,” she said. “We put a big man at the top, and then we have a quick guard running the baseline at the bottom. Ours is a little nontraditional in that way.
“That’s a very active position on the defense — going back and forth, just trying to cause a little chaos and make some distortions.”
O’Halek has impressed Barnes with those efforts.
“I give her a lot of credit for playing the top,” Barnes said. “She’s really good at deflecting. She reads the passes. She can see where the ball is going to bounce each time. Even if it gets by her, it’s right past her hand and she’s almost there.
“She definitely causes a lot of trouble for the other team on defense, deflecting passes, getting in the way of straight-line passes. I give her a lot of credit because it’s definitely really tiring. She goes back and forth the whole entire game. I get tired just having to fill for her one time. It’s definitely hard.”
Gerdt held that role last season before she suffered a knee injury. Clark suffered a season-ending injury too. By the end of the season, O’Halek emerged as a starter.
“That became my job last year, and it was a big adjustment,” she said. “I wasn’t used to playing all of those minutes. I go from getting in here and there to playing all of those minutes in that spot. That’s exhausting.
“I was kind of nervous going into it. Becca’s one of my best friends, and I knew how good she was at playing that spot. It kind of intimidated me at first. I had to fill those shoes. After a while, it got easier. It took some learning, but now I really enjoy it. This year, it’s funny now because if I get subbed out and Becca has to go play top, she’s like, ‘Oh, my gosh, I’m exhausted. I don’t know how you do it.’ She’s a wing now, and I stayed on top now that she’s back. It’s like, ‘Yeah, girl, you forget. You forget how exhausting it is.’ We go back and forth about it.”
O’Halek is averaging 5.6 points, 3.6 rebounds, 1.5 assists and 1.7 steals this season. She has worked on her post moves and on using her frame and angles to her advantage. Barnes has noticed.
“She’s definitely improved a lot over the two years I’ve been here,” Barnes said. “I can tell she’s getting a softer touch around the rim, getting more confident. She just brings a lot to our team.”
Valparaiso coach Candy Wilson wasn’t sure O’Halek would reach that point. O’Halek played on the junior varsity team as a freshman and for almost all of her sophomore season too. But then she became a top reserve and eventually a starter last season, when the Vikings won their first sectional title since 2005.
“I told her this last year: She was kind of a pleasant surprise because I wasn’t sure if she was going to become a player or not,” Wilson said. “She had all the tools, but she just wasn’t quite there with confidence. But, man, she turned that around and stepped it up last year and was a big part of that. That experience last year, her getting thrown into that position, it really helped her out. And this year, she’s right in it.
“She really stepped up for us. She had all the skills, and her confidence has just grown and grown and grown. She’s grown to accept that contact. She has a nice dink hook now. Rebounding, she gets in there. The top of that 1-3-1, she’s really done a nice job. She’s just been really integral to everything we do. She’s been a game-changer the last year and a half. I’m really pleased with her.”
O’Halek has also become a leader for the Vikings.
“She always has high energy, whether it’s on the court or on the bench,” Barnes said. “She’s always cheering for everyone. If we make a shot, you can always hear Raegan screaming, jumping up and down. It gets you out of your mood if you’re in a bad mood. Right when you make a shot, you can hear her screaming. Personally, it makes me laugh, and it gets me in a better mood on the court.”
Wilson agreed O’Halek has developed into a vital voice for the team.
“She’s really the one in the locker room who will chirp at everybody — and on the court too,” Wilson said. “If things aren’t going the way they should, she’ll get on them.
“She’ll tell it how it is to everybody, and they respect that. She’s friends with everybody. She has a kind heart. But she’ll speak her piece.”
O’Halek intends to study nursing in college. She is already participating in a vocational program to become a certified nursing assistant and is job shadowing in a hospital emergency room.
O’Halek will play one more sport before pursuing that career path. She added tennis when she got to high school and was part of the Vikings’ No. 2 doubles team the past two seasons.
“I started my freshman year just out of curiosity,” she said. “I was like, ‘I’m a freshman. Let me meet some new friends, join a sport I’ve never tried.’ I wasn’t very good my freshman year, but I had fun playing.
“I came back sophomore year, and I improved a ton. I don’t know how, I don’t know why. I quite literally pick up the racket when the season starts. What position I’ll play now this year, who knows? I just know I have a lot of fun in season. Then it’s back to basketball.”
O’Halek has been enjoying the deep postseason runs in basketball. In the Vikings’ 47-46 win against Northridge in the regional last week, Gerdt scored the go-ahead basket on a pass from Clark in the waning seconds, and Barnes had the clinching blocked shot. Right after the game, O’Halek was asked whether she was the one who had that block.
“I couldn’t even process the question,” O’Halek said. “It wasn’t me. It was Lilli. But I was just racking my brain. I didn’t even know what happened. I was like, ‘I don’t think it was me, but I don’t even know.’ It was just all so overwhelming in the moment, just so exciting.
“Me and my teammates were crying. We were going crazy. It was just surreal. After the game, I was just in shock, like, ‘Did we really win that game? Like, what happened?’ It took a while to set in.”
The Vikings will have their hands full again Saturday. Their next opponent, Noblesville, won 65-56 in a regular-season game between the teams on Dec. 28. But O’Halek is confident she and her teammates can keep up.
“I’m just so happy about this season,” O’Halek said. “I’ve gotten so close with the girls, and it’s been so fun. We have a really young team, and there’s so many of the girls that I wasn’t as close with last year because we had a lot of seniors. So this year is like a fresh team, and it’s cool how close I’ve grown with them. We’re genuinely best friends and do everything together.
“I’m just really proud of us and how far we’ve come, and we’re totally thinking we can keep going. We’ve worked really hard for this.”
