{"id":117451,"date":"2014-10-01T20:17:47","date_gmt":"2014-10-02T02:17:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/looking-for-a-rhythm\/"},"modified":"2014-10-01T20:17:47","modified_gmt":"2014-10-02T02:17:47","slug":"looking-for-a-rhythm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/looking-for-a-rhythm\/","title":{"rendered":"Looking for a rhythm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Larissa
Larissa Umberger and Harlie Valdez block a spike against Pagosa Springs.<\/span>Sam Green\/Dolores Star<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

So far this season, the Dolores High School volleyball team has played inconsistently on its way to a 5-5 record. Win or lose however, young players have gained valuable experience that could benefit the team in the future.<\/p>\n

Bears fall to Pagosa Springs<\/p>\n

Kicking off last weekend\u2019s matches at home against Pagosa Springs on Sept. 25, the Bears were defeated 25-22, 25-14, 25-12.<\/p>\n

Playing some of their best volleyball of the season during the first set, Dolores kept things close before pulling ahead 12-11 on an ace by Larissa Umberger.<\/p>\n

With the score tied 18-18 however, Dolores fell apart, surrendering four straight points to fall behind 22-18 before eventually losing the set 25-22 after a perfect tip by Pagosa\u2019s LaShae Smith.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe controlled the ball really well (in the first set),\u201d said Umberger. \u201cOur hits were good, and our passes were good. We just didn\u2019t finish.\u201d<\/p>\n

Struggling to find their rhythm throughout the second set, Dolores fell behind 12-7 after a kill by Pagosa\u2019s Brooke Kudelski.<\/p>\n

The Bears rebounded, cutting the Pagosa lead to to 13-10 on a hard kill by Courtney Blackmer, before surrendering several points in route to a 25-12 loss.<\/p>\n

Continuing to struggle throughout the third set, the Bears fell behind 12-4 early before allowing Pagosa to coast to an easy victory.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur passes were off in the second and third game,\u201d said Umberger. \u201cWe weren\u2019t talking as much and the energy dropped.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just got down on ourselves and made unforced errors,\u201d added Dolores head coach Gina Hollen.<\/p>\n

Bears roll by Ignacio, Nucla<\/p>\n

Looking to rebound at the Ignacio-Tri with matchups against Ignacio and Nucla on Sept. 27, the Bears played as well as they have all year and won twice.<\/p>\n

Kicking off against Ignacio, Dolores cruised to a 25-11, 25-18, 25-13 victory before defeating Nucla in a five set thriller, 26-28, 26-24, 25-16, 23-25, 16-14.<\/p>\n

Helping Dolores to victory were several underclassmen who, playing varsity for the first time this season, have improved.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really special that I\u2019ve gotten to play with varsity this year,\u201d said Bears freshman Cameron Elder. \u201c(Playing varsity) is really helping (the younger players) improve.\u201d<\/p>\n

Next up for Dolores will be a road matchup against Telluride on Oct. 3.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just need to clean up a few things here and there and build our confidence,\u201d said Hollen of her team\u2019s goals for its upcoming matches.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dolores volleyball falls to Pagosa Springs, defeats Ignacio and Nucla<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":117452,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6362],"tags":[188],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-117451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ds-sports","tag-dolores-star"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117451","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=117451"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117451\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/117452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117451"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=117451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}