JEFFERSON TWP — When Hannah Rowe was younger, volleyball wasn't even in her vocabulary.

She was a twirler. Lived it. Breathed it. Was all in.

“It was my life,” said Rowe, a senior outside hitter for the Knoch volleyball team. “Day and night. Seven days a week. I was very committed.”

So committed, in fact, she did legitimate damage to her home while practicing.

“There were holes in my ceiling from me twirling,” Rowe said. “My parents weren't very happy about that.”

For nine years, Rowe could be found with a baton spinning between her fingers. She was so good at it, she attended many competitions and won most of them.

After winning all of her events at a regional competition, Rowe decided she was done.

“I turned to my mom and said, 'I want to try sports,'” Rowe said.

Athleticism runs in Rowe's family and she decided she wanted to see how far sports could take her.

She knew paying for college in the future was going to be a challenge and that there weren't many scholarships to be had for twirling, no matter how good one was at it.

Rowe picked up track and field, basketball and, yes, volleyball.

She was so raw at volleyball when she began playing in the eighth grade that she said, “I didn't know the fundamentals of anything.”

That changed.

And Monday she signed her national letter of intent to play at Division I Albany.

“Signing makes it the real deal,” Rowe said. “Now I'm officially a Great Dane. I'm proud of myself now to be able to pull this off and be lucky enough to be on the Dane Train.”

Rowe developed her skills quickly after picking up the sport. It didn't hurt that she had raw power in her right arm and tremendous leaping ability coiling from a sinewy 6-foot-1 frame.

Her volleyball IQ and other skills developed later.

But Rowe was still split between volleyball, track and basketball.

As a freshman, Rowe shocked the field at the WPIAL Track and Field Championships when she won the Class AAA high jump.

She cleared 5 feet, 4 inches that day.

“It's kind of crazy,” Rowe said. “When I went to the WPIAL championships, I was like, 'All right, I just want to PR today.' Then I did that and was like, 'Well, I might as well keep going.'”

Track was suddenly at the top of her list.

But her sophomore year on the volleyball court changed that.

Knoch went 24-0 and won the PIAA 3A championship.

Rowe was a big part of that state title, but was still raw and her talent on the volleyball court not completely tapped.

“My heart was kind of in track before then,” Rowe said. “Then we had such an unforgettable volleyball season and my career progressed. I kind of took a left turn.”

Rowe became skilled at more than just at the net. Her serve improved and she began to play the back row, wracking up digs and becoming an all-around player.

Suddenly, she had a difficult decision to make.

She quit track and basketball to focus solely on volleyball.

“It was the hardest decision I had to make to give up track and basketball,” Rowe said. “But I'm the type of person that I have to be committed to something 100 percent. I can't just half-heart things. It's not how I'm built. If I'm not into something 100 percent, I'm not being fair to my coaches and my teammates.”

Rowe shared the Butler Eagle Girls Volleyball Player of the Year Award last season with teammate Kennedy Christy.

This season, though, was a challenging one for Rowe.

A serious back injury suffered in early October threatened to derail her senior campaign.

“The injury took a toll on me physically, but more mentally,” Rowe said.

Doctors originally thought she simply had muscle spasms. Rowe, however, knew it was more serious than that.

“I have such a high pain tolerance, but this was something different,” she said. “I told them, 'You don't understand. This is not normal.'”

Finally the pain grew so severe, Rowe went to the emergency room and got an MRI on her back.

The MRI revealed two herniated discs in her lower back.

“I was like, 'Ah, I told you,' Rowe said.

Rest and physical therapy was the treatment. It wasn't easy for Rowe to simply rest and sit on the bench.

“I've never been out that long, ever,” Rowe said. “It was really stressful for me. I probably pushed myself too hard to get back.”

Rowe, though, pushed through the pain and had 21 kills in Knoch's WPIAL championship victory over Thomas Jefferson.

It was the Knights third consecutive district title.

Knoch fell in the state semifinals to Palmyra, but Rowe said she has no regrets and is looking forward to her next volleyball chapter in Albany.

“It was like a completely different feeling,” Rowe said. “Committing was a relief. Signing was kind of like a heartening feeling.”