Murphy Heading into her senior basketball season, Murphy High School’s Torin Rogers had checked off a lot of boxes for her high school career.
The 6-foot, 1-inch, do-it-all player had won two state championships, been Smoky Mountain Conference Player of the Year as a sophomore and scored more than 1,000 career points. Weeks before the start of the season, she signed a national letter of intent to play basketball at the University of Richmond.
For all the accomplishments, something was still missing. She had yet to play high school basketball with her sister, Lochlan, a junior who had been battling knee injuries the past two seasons.
Add in the COVID-19 pandemic, and there were a lot of challenges thrown Torin and Lochlan’s way. But through it all the two grew closer than they had before, on and off the court. It’s what made this season so meaningful.
“I was really excited for it,” Torin said. “I don’t know if (Lochlan) would say it, but she was, too.”
‘All we had was each other’
Growing up, Torin and Lochlan had a pretty typical sister relationship. The two played every sport together, including not just basketball but gymnastics, soccer and tee-ball. As they got older, Torin looked forward to the alternating years where she and Lochlan would be able to play on the same team.
The sisters were always in each others’ corner, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t get heated at times. With all the driveway battles they had growing up, Lochlan said she can defend Torin better than almost anyone.
“I love playing defense on Torin,” Lochlan said. “I know all of her moves, so it’s kind of hard for her to surprise me with something new.”
Usually, the driveway battles had small arguments, like who had to get the ball when it rolled down the hill. But one day in March 2020 at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, it finally reached a boiling point.
Torin and Lochlan argued over a foul, and Lochlan punched Torin in the face and gave her a black eye. After the tension dialed down, Lochlan apologized. Their relationship grew after that.
In the initial stages of the pandemic, Torin and Lochlan’s parents set strict rules. They weren’t really allowed to hang out with their friends initially, so Torin and Lochlan continued to spend more time with each other. They were close before, but had different friend groups.
It started out with the two just going on drives together. Taylor Swift usually blasted over the speakers, but sometimes it could be the latest trending song on TikTok.
They started to cook together, which led to an obsession over who could make whipped coffee. Torin was able to figure it out, while Lochlan was not. Lochlan however, did have more success with baking.
They collaborated on art projects too, and soon realized they were doing everything together. At the beginning of the pandemic, one sister would ask the other to do something, and the other would somewhat begrudgingly say yes.
“All we had was each other,” Torin said. “We just started talking more and like I said we just built this relationship that she knows everything about me, I know everything about her.
“We’re just best friends.”
‘I believe in you’
Over that same time period, Lochlan was trying to get healthy again after multiple knee surgeries. Growing up, she would hear people say how excited they were to watch her play with Torin once they both got to Murphy High.
That plan started to go sideways during Lochlan’s freshman year. In the summer of 2019, she tore the meniscus in her right knee playing volleyball, but didn’t tell anyone because she hates telling people when she’s hurt.
After three months, the pain became unbearable and she had to have the meniscus removed. In February 2020, she hurt her left knee and had to have surgery again. Then in October 2020, doctors had to perform surgery on her right knee to remove some scar tissue.
Lochlan said she had the typical “woe is me” response the first time, but was still determined to get back on the court. After the second injury, she said she didn’t talk to anyone for three days because she couldn’t believe it happened again.
By the third time, she was past wondering if she could be the same player she was pre-injury. Only one thing was keeping her focused on returning.
“I was just so determined that I wanted to play with my sister,” Lochlan said. “And just seeing her daily reminded me of my goal.”
Torin would help Lochlan through her stretches and exercises, encouraging her through a grueling process. After Lochlan’s third surgery, she had a goal of being cleared to warm up ahead of one of Murphy’s games against Robbinsville last season. She set that goal two weeks before the game, while doctors said it would be a month and a half before she’d be ready.
In the lead-up to that game, Lochlan remembers breaking down and crying during a leg press exercise. She told Torin she was ready to give up.
“She was just like, ‘I believe in you Loch,’ ” Lochlan said. “ ‘This is so hard I know it is, I can’t even begin to think about where you’re coming from but you just have to, you can’t give up now, you’ve gotten too far.’ ”
Lochlan would persevere, eventually warming up in that game and later getting some minutes in the state championship game in March 2021.
‘She’s everything to me’
This season, she and Torin started every game for a team that went on to win both the Big Smoky Mountain Conference regular season and tournament championship. Torin was named conference player of the year, and helped lead a somewhat inexperienced team through a challenging schedule.
Head coach Ray Gutierrez demands a lot of his players, and Lochlan said Torin would tell them to keep pushing forward. Lochlan eventually settled into a role
as a hard-nosed player who could finish off fast breaks, hold her own defensively and fight for rebounds.
It all came to a head during Murphy’s third-round playoff game against Albemarle. Murphy pushed the tempo at will, and hit Lochlan on multiple runouts. Lochlan finished with a career-high 36 points in a 66-36 win
“I’m so proud of her,” Torin said of Lochlan. “And just to see her step up in moments like that, to see her succeed, it’s such a good feeling.”
Three days later, Murphy would fall to eventual state champion Bishop McGuinness in the Elite 8. Unfortunately, it was the last time they’ll play on the same team. During Murphy’s senior night ceremony against Andrews, tears streamed down Lochlan’s face as she realized that the season was almost over..
It was also a reminder of the journey they had been on together. The two went from a typical sister relationship, to knowing they could tell each other anything.
As Torin was having doubts about whether or not she should commit to Richmond, Lochlan told her she thought it would be a good place for her and that there was no way she could let her sister make a bad decision. It wasn’t necessarily to swing the vote, Lochlan said, just to make her more comfortable with the process.
When Torin heads to Richmond next fall, both sisters said they’ll talk everyday. Lochlan said she’s planning to visit often, probably more than her parents realize. This chapter in their lives may be closing, but Torin and Lochlan know their relationship is strong enough to carry them through what comes next.
“She’s everything to me,” Lochlan said of Torin. “I couldn’t imagine a life without her. We are going to be living our separate lives in different places in this world, but to always know that I have a home with her, it’s really comforting to me.”