With a new year and new classification upon them, the Dulce High School Lady Hawks will look to make it three consecutive seasons with at least 16 wins and state tournament appearances.
Back to lead the team is Kathleen Salazar-Valdez, entering her 16th year as head coach as Dulce drops down to Class 2A to compete in District 1.
“I went to college and always wanted to come back and help the community out somehow,” she said. “All the kids are family somehow, so it’s been easy to stay here.”
She’s not joking about family — five of Salazar-Valdez’s players are her nieces, including sophomore setter Jasmine Salazar, who will play her third season as a starter on the varsity team.
“She’s been my setter since the eighth grade,” Salazar-Valdez said. “The thing about her is, I’ve had her in the gym since she was 3 and had her playing against varsity at 8.”
Salazar was a captain last season as a freshman, but Salazar-Valdez said she still needs to see more leadership out of her setter.
“I’m still looking for captains,” she said. “I’m looking for that one person, two persons that can show me they can be (leaders) out on that court. Jasmine has it sometimes, but she can get down on herself after a bad set.”
Junior middle hitter Caitlin Duncan returns to hold down the front line, along with senior leadership from outside hitter Jaelyn Reval. The Lady Hawks will run a 5-1 offense with a single setter after Salazar-Valdez has traditionally run a 6-2 system.
Defensively, Salazar-Valdez said this will be the first year she inserts a libero – a defensive specialist – into the lineup.
At this point, Salazar-Valdez said she will carry eight players on her varsity roster, but is still in the midst of “tweaking it and possibly adding some more freshmen.”
She credited the recent success in the past two seasons to her year-round approach.
“Yes, we’re very, very tight-knit,” Salazar-Valdez said. “One reason being, is I start the offseason program right away after the state basketball tournament. I encourage team things in the summer and we all have sleepovers and things like that. The reason we’ve been so successful is because the feeder program is in great shape.”
Dulce’s new district will take them out of competition with McCurdy Charter School and Santa Fe’s Monte Del Sol Charter and Santa Fe Prep.
The new district aligns them with schools mostly in the northwest part of the state, but it’s also a crowded district with seven teams total (Dulce, Navajo Pine, Newcomb, Shiprock Northwest, Ramah, Rehoboth Christian and Tse’ Yi’ Gai).
“Being moved with a lot of the native schools, they are so talented, they are,” Salazar-Valdez said. “What I’m expecting is competition. I’m not going to put my hands down and say we could beat everyone, I’m just going in very competitive.”
The Lady Hawks went 3-1 last year against teams that will be in their district this season. Ramah and Rehoboth Christian both had just three losses last season and Ramah advanced to the Class 2A state championship, before losing to Logan High School in five sets.
Dulce has been knocked out of the state tournament the last two seasons in the first-round.
Dulce football and cross country coaches and the school’s athletic department did not respond to emails and/or calls for information on their teams and athletes to formulate a preview.