{"id":122781,"date":"2013-11-27T22:04:47","date_gmt":"2013-11-28T05:04:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/bears-looking-strong\/"},"modified":"2013-11-27T22:04:47","modified_gmt":"2013-11-28T05:04:47","slug":"bears-looking-strong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/bears-looking-strong\/","title":{"rendered":"Bears looking strong"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Taylor
Taylor Elder takes a shot during the Dolores Lady Bears practice.<\/span>Sam Green\/Cortez Journal<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The jerseys will look familiar, but the faces will look different.<\/p>\n

Coming off a season in which they finished 15-7, the Dolores High School girls\u2019 basketball team is hoping to again be competitive, albeit without the help of four key seniors who were lost to graduation.<\/p>\n

SENIOR LEADER, KEY SOPHOMORES LOOKING TO STEP UP<\/p>\n

Looking to fill the void left by Lexi Atkinson, Cydney McHenry, Mindy McCracken and Sam Tate will be senior Brianna Schwartz, a talented athlete and big time leader.<\/p>\n

Coming off a junior season in which she averaged five points per game, Schwartz will look to energize the offensive and defensive ends of the court.<\/p>\n

\u201c(Schwartz) is a heck of a player and quite an athlete,\u201d said Bears\u2019 head coach Tim Kercher. \u201cShe was our defensive stopper last year and she\u2019s a leader by example. \u201c<\/p>\n

Hoping to compliment Schwartz with skill and intensity will be a trio of sophomores composed of Nicole Kibel, Larrissa Umberger and Oliva Wright, who, according to Kercher, have been improving every day.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe hope to mesh together as a team,\u201d said Umberger. \u201cLots of us have played together since about sixth grade.\u201d<\/p>\n

BEARS UTILIZE<\/p>\n

QUICKNESS<\/p>\n

A somewhat small team, the Bears hope their quickness translates into fast- break opportunities, which in turn, translate into points.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not going to outsize anybody this year, but we are going to run as much as we can,\u201d said Kercher.<\/p>\n

With their running game in mind, the Bears will utilize a high-pressure man defense in hopes of creating turnovers and stymying offensive attacks.<\/p>\n

\u201cRight now, we\u2019re playing man,\u201d explained Kercher. \u201cIt\u2019s the best way to teach the girls how to play defense.\u201d<\/p>\n

BEARS HOPING<\/p>\n

TO COMPETE<\/p>\n

With a schedule matching them against some of the area\u2019s toughest teams, the Bears figured to be challenged, yet there is little reason to believe that the team cannot be competitive.<\/p>\n

Highlighting the schedule will be a matchup at Mancos on Dec. 20 and one at the Bluejays on Feb. 22.<\/p>\n

Clearly looking forward to the season, Umberger took a moment to discuss what makes playing basketball in Dolores so special.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really like being a Bear,\u201d said Umberger. \u201cEveryone knows everyone, everyone get along and everyone supports one another.\u201d<\/p>\n

Definitely a winning formula that promises to make for an exciting 2013-14 girls\u2019 basketball season in Dolores.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

despite losing key players<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":122782,"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-122781","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\/122781","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=122781"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122781\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/122782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122781"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=122781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}