Escalante’s seniors have stepped up in more ways than one.
After the graduation of five seniors from last year’s team left a leadership void, the new seniors — including setter Emma Maestas, hitter Brycelyn Martinez and defensive specialist Katelyn Hinds — became the new team leaders both on and off the court.
So when a new player, Abryanna Baca, joined the varsity team from junior varsity, it was Martinez who stepped up and offered to take a reduction in playing time to give Baca a chance.
“That’s a true leader,” said team coach Kathleen Salazar-Valdez. “Making sure everybody gets playing time.”
The Lady Lobos swept Pecos (0-4) 25-15, 25-20, 25-18 on Wednesday to move to 2-1 on the year.
Despite a 2-1 start to the season, including a 1-1 mark against good 3A teams, 2A Escalante’s coach expects more, calling the year a “struggle” and saying the hitters have more to learn. Salazar-Valdez has high expectations she brought from Dulce, where she took the Lady Hawks to a state runner-up finish in 2018.
“I’ll take the ‘W’ now just to make sure we stay on the rankings,” Salazar-Valdez said. “And just make sure we fix what we need to fix. There’s a lot of stuff that I still need to fix.”
The Lady Lobos fell down 8-3 in the first set, then won six straight points, added nine more soon after on a strong service run from Felice Baca, and from there they never really struggled.They scored the first five points in the second set and the first six points in the third and led comfortably.
“At first, we were a little, like, timid,” Hinds said. “Once we start, like, getting kills and everything, we are very energetic, and we move a lot more.”
Maestas finished the match with 15 assists, three aces and five kills. Martinez had nine kills, six coming in the third set.
Escalante gets a five-day break over Labor Day Weekend, then plays three matches in four days, including two against 3A teams. The first comes on Tuesday against Cuba, who is off to a 4-0 start to the year.
“Last year, I would have loved that schedule,” Salazar-Valdez said. “This year, just because we have to fix so much, I wish we had a little bit of more practice in between. But it is what it is. We’ll fix it.”