{"id":56401,"date":"2013-10-30T22:29:00","date_gmt":"2013-10-31T04:29:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/bears-season-comes-to-surprising-end\/"},"modified":"2026-03-29T15:53:31","modified_gmt":"2026-03-29T15:53:31","slug":"bears-season-comes-to-surprising-end","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/bears-season-comes-to-surprising-end\/","title":{"rendered":"Bears season comes to surprising end"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Abby
Abby Hopcia spikes the ball against Ignacio in the 2A District 3 tournament Saturday at Mancos.<\/span>Sam Green\/Cortez Journal<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

For the Dolores Bears volleyball team, the 2013 season ended far too fast and far too soon.<\/p>\n

Coming off an outstanding regular season in which the team won 13 of its 19 games, the Bears dropped their first two games of the 2A District 3 Tournament, thus ending their season with a 13-8 record.<\/p>\n

Opening the tournament in Mancos on Saturday, Oct. 26, the Bears faced off against the Ignacio Bobcats, a team that Dolores defeated twice during the regular season.<\/p>\n

Battling injuries and uncharacteristically lethargic play, the Bears fell in four sets, 25-23, 17-25, 26-24, 25-22.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of my top seniors, (Elana Bernholtz), was injured,\u201d Bears\u2019 head coach Gina Hollen said. \u201cWe did not pass the ball very well. Our passing wasn\u2019t there, and as a result, our sets were kind of off.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shortly after their loss to Ignacio, the Bears returned to action against the Nucla Mustangs, a team that, like Ignacio, Dolores had beaten twice earlier this year.<\/p>\n

Looking to extend their season, the Bears battled hard before eventually dropping a five-set nail biter, 25-22, 24-26, 25-22, 20-25, 15-12.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe missed serves in the third and fourth game,\u201d said Hollen of the loss. \u201cThe energy level was down. We had a few calls that definitely went against us. The girls played strong and fought to the end.\u201d<\/p>\n

With their loss to Nucla, the Bears were eliminated from the tournament.<\/p>\n

With several key underclassmen returning next year, the Bears will look to put their surprisingly quick postseason exit in the rearview mirror and begin preparing for next season.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to work on refining our skills,\u201d said Hollen. \u201cWe have to develop trust among the players. \u201cWe just need to learn to work and trust each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

imaclaren@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dolores upset twice in District Tournament, finishes season with 13-8 record.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":56402,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[188,427],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-56401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-dolores-star","tag-prep-sports"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56401","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=56401"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56401\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62583,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56401\/revisions\/62583"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56401"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=56401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}