{"id":16929,"date":"2025-08-14T19:53:56","date_gmt":"2025-08-14T19:53:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/bears-volleyball-gearing-up-for-a-new-era\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T04:02:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:02:09","slug":"bears-volleyball-gearing-up-for-a-new-era","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/bears-volleyball-gearing-up-for-a-new-era\/","title":{"rendered":"Bears volleyball gearing up for a new era"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Dolores
Dolores junior Kendall Chavez and the Bears have high hopes for the upcoming 2025 volleyball season. Sam Green\/Special to The Journal<\/span>Sam Green\/Special to The Journal<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

DOLORES \u2013 There\u2019s plenty of excitement in Bear territory for the upcoming volleyball season \u2013 and with the combination of an influx of new talent, a wide-open San Juan Basin League title race, and a new head coach \u2013 there are a lot of reasons to see why.<\/p>\n

Under new head coach Brianna Wyatt, who makes the move to Dolores after leading Mancos last fall, the Bears face the prospect of climbing back to a position that they regularly enjoyed at the end of the 2010s \u2013 atop the SJBL standings.<\/p>\n

Senior Taylor Erautt has become a mainstay in the Dolores attacking front, and someone that Wyatt will look to for leadership along with a promising junior class. The Bears have athleticism all over the court, headlined by their leading attacker from a year ago \u2013 junior Kendall Chavez. Erautt and Chavez combined for over 200 kills last year while also providing some of the emotional ballast for the Bears to help them weather the ups and downs of an 8-14 season.<\/p>\n

Classmate Madi Thornbrugh looks to continue her role as distributor for the Bears, having dished out nearly 300 assists last year \u2013 and she also possesses familiarity with Wyatt\u2019s system, having played alongside Chavez on Wyatt\u2019s Club Z program based in Farmington.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, fellow Class of \u201927 contributor Akaia Edwards will provide power for Wyatt\u2019s club from her right-side spot, while sophomore Jordyn Erautt looks to rise into a steady libero role.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been working together for the past four months,\u201d said Wyatt, \u201cand we\u2019ve had consistently 16 to 20 girls showing up, including some fresh faces that maybe hadn\u2019t played for a while \u2013 it\u2019s going to continue to grow.\u201d<\/p>\n

Part of the focus of offseason camps included gaining confidence in what it would take to win in the rigorous San Juan Basin League. \u201cWinning and losing are both habits,\u201d reflected Wyatt, \u201cand keeping our energy level high was one of the winning habits that we\u2019re developing.<\/p>\n

Incoming transfer junior Aubree Wyatt was a major force for Mancos last year, and looks to make an immediate impact for the Bears on the attack while another of the head coach\u2019s daughters, freshman Addyson Wyatt, will seek to make an immediate impact adding setting depth for the Bears. Classmate Layla Mitchell looks to help the Bears\u2019 back line as she steps onto the high school scene for the first time.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re moving forward together with a positive mindset, and that\u2019s what we hope will propel these girls forward,\u201d said Wyatt. \u201cThe energy and effort that these girls put into the offseason is something that will roll right into the season.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Bears have other upperclassmen in the program with plenty of varsity experience, giving Wyatt\u2019s group depth as they prepare themselves to navigate a new era of Dolores volleyball.<\/p>\n

Stern road tests to begin the season at Pagosa Springs (Aug. 26), a tournament in Crested Butte (Aug. 30), and a trip down Highway 145 to Montezuma-Cortez (Sept. 2) will help the Bears get prepared for league play, when they open their home schedule against Nucla on Sept. 4. The Bears meet their local rival Mancos twice this season (Sept. 11 and Oct. 2), while their lone meeting with Dove Creek arrives on Oct. 14. The Bears cap the regular season with home matches against Telluride (Oct. 23) and Ignacio (Oct. 28), with visions of building a strong record and return the program to the 2A postseason for the first time since 2021.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dolores seeks first league crown since 2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16930,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[38,39,28,37,36],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-16929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-dolores-high-school","tag-dove-creek-high-school","tag-headlines","tag-mancos-high-school","tag-montezuma-cortez-high-school"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16929","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=16929"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16929\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20470,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16929\/revisions\/20470"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16929"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=16929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}