{"id":22734,"date":"2025-04-12T00:05:44","date_gmt":"2025-04-12T06:05:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/dove-creeks-hickman-to-play-volleyball-in-college\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T22:16:34","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:16:34","slug":"dove-creeks-hickman-to-play-volleyball-in-college","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/dove-creeks-hickman-to-play-volleyball-in-college\/","title":{"rendered":"Dove Creek\u2019s Hickman to play volleyball in college"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Dove
Dove Creek senior Ralynn Hickman poses with her family after signing to play volleyball at Mount Marty University in South Dakota next year. Photo courtesy of Lacey Murphy.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Multisport standout heading to Mount Marty in South Dakota<\/div>\n

DOVE CREEK \u2013 The banners that ring the perimeter of The Dawg House at Dove Creek High School that commemorate the school\u2019s athletic success are a salient reminder of the adage \u201cIron sharpens iron.\u201d<\/p>\n

Senior Ralynn Hickman\u2019s banner joins the rest of her Class of 2025 fellow athletes who played a large part in the most recent additions to the accolades \u2013 state tournament appearances and league titles joining the list on a yearly basis.<\/p>\n

The volleyball, basketball and track star stepped into a role as an immediate varsity contributor, sharpening her skills behind the guidance of several outstanding classes of upperclassmen in front of her. In her final years as a Bulldog, Hickman in turn became the whetstone for the rest of her teammates, honing the skills the next wave of Dove Creek athletes.<\/p>\n

\"Dove
Dove Creek senior Ralynn Hickman (10) powers up for a kill shot over Hi-Plains senior Serenity Hernandez (2) during second-day action Friday morning, Nov. 15 at the Class 1A State Championships in the Denver Coliseum. Joel Priest\/Special to The Journal<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Her athletic career won\u2019t end when she walks across the graduation stage in May, however, as she recently committed to continue her volleyball career at Mount Marty University in Yankton, South Dakota.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of community support \u2013 they treat everyone like family,\u201d Hickman said about Mount Marty, \u201cand the volleyball program is doing well, so I feel like I can have a lot of success there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hickman capped off her Dove Creek athletic career among the tops in program history in numerous statistical categories, most notably surpassing 1,000 kills during her career as a dominant hitter for the Bulldogs. The individual accolades came as part of four state tournament appearances in volleyball, along with three in basketball. Hickman earned all-state designations twice in volleyball, once for hoops, and numerous all-state medals in track \u2013 where she hopes to add more to her total this spring.<\/p>\n

Seeing previous teammates like Class of 2024 Bulldogs Kalie and Kylie Gatlin continuing their volleyball careers after high school planted the seed for Hickman that it was something that she could chase, too.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey reached out and said, \u2018You can do this,\u2019 and that really helped me,\u201d said Hickman. \u201cI knew that I wanted to play, I just wasn\u2019t sure where I was going to go.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, she\u2019ll head to the Great Plains Athletic Conference in the NAIA, where the MMU Lancers hope to continue building a program that finished 12-15 last fall.<\/p>\n

With the school situated on the bluffs above the Missouri River on the southern border of the Mount Rushmore State, Hickman looks forward to continuing her education in nursing.<\/p>\n

\"Dove
Dove Creek senior Ralynn Hickman defends Ignacio junior Alyssa Atencio. (Erika Alvero\/Special to The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cI had a lot of schools reach out to me, but Mount Marty provided me with one of the best opportunities to go into nursing,\u201d added Hickman, \u201cand I\u2019ve been wanting to explore outside of Colorado, so that\u2019ll be great, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

She\u2019ll take a barrel full of varsity letters and memories from her time at Dove Creek, while also remembering the coaches and mentors who led her down her path. \u201cThey always took the time to let me know how proud they were,\u201d said Hickman. \u201cI always felt like I had their support.\u201d<\/p>\n

With the recent dominance that the Bulldogs have enjoyed in San Juan Basin League action in both volleyball and basketball, Hickman grew up around a strong, motivated group of athletes \u2013 something that pushed her to excel just by keeping up with her older friends.<\/p>\n

\"Dove
Dove Creek sophomore Ralynn Hickman launches into the pit in the triple jump in the San Juan Basin League at Mancos High School. Ben Bradley\/Special to The Journal<\/span>Ben Bradley\/Special to The Journal<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cPlaying with them \u2013 our practices were always intense, sometimes more intense than the games,\u201d said Hickman with a smile. \u201cOur coaches always told us that we were fun to watch because of the energy we brought to the court.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the same time, we always made it fun,\u201d added Hickman, \u201cand that\u2019s something I\u2019ll always hold on to from my time at Dove Creek.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Creek senior Ralynn Hickman poses with her family after signing to play volleyball at Mount Marty University in South Dakota next year. Photo courtesy of Lacey Murphy. Multisport standout heading to Mount Marty in South Dakota DOVE CREEK \u2013 The banners that ring the perimeter of The Dawg House at Dove Creek High School […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22735,"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-22734","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\/22734","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=22734"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22734\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77830,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22734\/revisions\/77830"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22735"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22734"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=22734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}