Now, entering her second season with assistant coaches Valorie Bauer and Janee Crockett, Pickens will look to improve on last year\u2019s 13-11 record.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur goal is always, in a winning sense, making the state playoffs,\u201d Pickens said. \u201cBut we also want to progress as players.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Panthers return all but two of last year\u2019s varsity players, losing Abby Chupp and Naomi Pinnecoose to graduation.<\/p>\n
Returners include, seniors Laurel Chappell and Kristin Pierce, juniors Danielle McDonald, Rylee Lindsley, Skylar Robinson, Kaila Carver and sophomores Tyra Pinnecoose and Hannah Carver.<\/p>\n
As a first-team all-conference selection in 2014, Pickens believes Chappell\u2019s play will be key to the Panthers\u2019 success.<\/p>\n
\u201cLaurel is so versatile,\u201d Pickens explained. \u201cShe can hit and set, so we use her all over.\u201d<\/p>\n
She also expects the team to lean on Chappell and fellow senior Pierce as team leaders.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s one of our seniors, along with Kristin Pierce, who is one of our big hitters,\u201d she said. \u201cSo we rely on them.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Panthers\u2019 first game is Tuesday, Sept. 1 against Bayfield. It will be the first competition in the new M-CHS gymnasium, with the C-team and junior varsity games beginning at 5 p.m. and varsity at 6:30 p.m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Now, entering her second season with assistant coaches Valorie Bauer and Janee Crockett, Pickens will look to improve on last year\u2019s 13-11 record. \u201cOur goal is always, in a winning sense, making the state playoffs,\u201d Pickens said. \u201cBut we also want to progress as players.\u201d The Panthers return all but two of last year\u2019s varsity […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":109950,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5770],"tags":[21,80],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-109949","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-high-school-sports","tag-cortez","tag-dove-creek"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109949","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109949"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109949\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/109950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109949"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=109949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}