Class 2A needs to be well-aware of the Dulce High School volleyball team.
The Lady Hawks were able to roll most of the way through the Santa Fe Indian School Pink Tournament Sept. 21-22 with little trouble, but finally met their match against the host Lady Braves in the final of the Gold Championship Bracket.
Throughout pool play and their semifinal match sweep of Santa Fe Prep, Dulce lost just one set, which came against Raton High School, but then they were defeated handily by the Indian School 3-1 (25-22, 25-14, 22-25, 25-8) in a match where the Lady Braves had little trouble keeping balls off the floor on defense, living up to their reputation as a unit that doesn’t let the other team score easily.
In the third year that the Lady Hawks have made the trip to the Tournament, this was their first appearance in the Gold Bracket after previously advancing to the Copper and Bronze Brackets. The second-place finish out of 16 schools was more than enough to leave head coach Kathy Salazar-Valdez happy as she held the second-place trophy.
“For a 2A team to come in here and compete like this; I’m happy, really I’m perfectly fine,” she said after the championship loss. “I think we just wanted it too much. We came in and were ready to take things into our control, but I’m still happy.”
Dulce was hardly pushed the entire weekend, but they ran into an Indian School squad that was able to beat them at their own game: aggressive serving, staying in system and consistently keeping balls up in the back row. Salazar-Valdez admitted that the strong defensive and transition play by the Lady Braves took her offense out of sync, but that the rallies and tempo were also an issue.
“The thing with Santa Fe Indian, they kept those balls up but they also ran a faster tempo,” she said. “When they saw one of our girls down, they were able to send it back that much faster than we could.”
Rally victories were hard to come by for the Lady Hawks. Of the few that they were able to win, the most critical were rallies late in the third set as Dulce finished on a 9-2 run for their only set win of the match.
The Indian School quickly regained the momentum back in the fourth and final set, building the lead up to 15-6 behind some strong serving from Analisa Pino, before closing out the set 25-8 and the match.
The Lady Braves’ aggressive serving completely took Dulce out of system for a majority of the match and as good as Lady Hawk setter Jasmine Salazar had looked throughout the Tournament, she was forced into setting more balls outside of zero, making things harder for outside hitters Jaelynn Reval and lefty Caitlin Duncan, who were two of the strongest terminal players from any school present over the weekend.
“They were definitely picking up a lot of balls,” Duncan said about the final match against the Indian School. “They’re a really good team and so are we, but they just came out a little quicker and took control of things. I think we were tired, just a little bit tired, but we still did good here.”
Dulce will start off district play Sept. 27 at home when they host Tse’ Yi’ Gai High School. Moving forward, they have the recipe for success set in place behind aggressive serving, strong hitting from multiple sides of the net, excellent hands play and a solid back row, but communication will be a work in progress.
“Districts are starting next week and that’s the real season,” Salazar-Valdez said. “I’m so happy about entering district play the way we’re playing. At practice, we’ll fix what we have to fix but to me, it’s not a lot. We’ll work on talking more and I’ll think of some more drills to get us talking because that was another area that hurt us (against the Indian School).”
The McCurdy Charter School Lady Bobcats also competed at the Tournament, but their success was limited as they went 2-4 in pool play sets and dropped two matches to Estancia and Laguna-Acoma High School in the Bronze Bracket to sit at 3-8 overall on the season.
Aside from sweeping Zuni High School 2-0, their best moment came against the champion Lady Braves in pool play, where McCurdy trailed 24-17 in the first set before going on a 7-0 run to tie the score. They would fall 28-26 in the set, but the rally was encouraging for head coach Roberto DeVargas.
“That’s what happens when we start talking, he said. “That was great. That just shows what our kids are capable of doing when they’re firing on all cylinders and they’re talking out there. It goes a long way when they communicate to each other.”
After picking up two victories over Peñasco and Mesa Vista High School prior to the Tournament, DeVargas said he saw a change in the group and knows more consecutive victories will be needed in district play.
“Wins are contagious,” he said. “You start winning and getting momentum and you start to learn what you need to do to win, it gets contagious. This helped us learn a lot and helped us know what mistakes need to be fixed. It also helps us for state because this is sort of a mini environment of what state’s all about. You got a couple of courts going on, whistles going on. You’re playing a few games then all of a sudden here’s the bracket, this is who you’re playing, get ready.”
Along with McCurdy, no team in District 2-2A has a winning record to date.