Bears feature depth

Plan to showcase quickness, utilize bench
Aryelle Wright works the ball inside during the Dolores Bears’ scrimmage against the M-CHS Panthers Saturday in Cortez.

Head coach Larry Schwartz plans to play the Dolores girls basketball team in waves of five in order to wear teams down.

And with the Bears’ depth and athleticism, he has lofty goals for the 2015-2016 season.

Last year, the Bears went 7-15 and graduated four.

However, they return their three leading scorers in Nichole Kibel, Larissa Umberger and Madi Archuleta.

“Madi Archuleta has really improved her game,” Schwartz said. “We’re going to play her at the three, four and five spots, and sometimes shooting guard.”

On the inside, the team adds freshman Tatum Majors and senior Kitty Wallace, and while Schwartz will look to his group of seniors to hold down the guard positions, he has an abundance of young talent.

“We’ve got a bunch of young sophomore and freshman girls - just a lot of speed,” he said. “We don’t have a whole lot of height, but a lot of speed. We’ll do a lot of pressing and get after it.”

With plenty of depth and a healthy mix of upperclassmen and underclassmen, the Bears are hoping to improve off last year’s results.

“Last year we got back into districts,” Schwartz said. “This year we want to take it a step further and get into regionals and then see if we can make some noise.”