Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
New coach has eight seniors for upcoming campaign
CLOVIS — Ruth Chavez is all dug in. Now it’s time for her Wildcats to dive in.
Chavez, Portales’ head volleyball coach for 15 years, is settled into the same role at Clovis after her original plans to retire only spanned one year because she missed coaching.
On Tuesday, her new team will begin its season hosting Palo Duro of Amarillo. The C-teams start it off at 4 p.m., followed by the junior varsity, then the varsity, at Rock Staubus Gymnasium.
Experience should be a Wildcat strength. Though Chavez is a Clovis neophyte, most of her players are not. She has the benefit of eight seniors on the varsity roster, and from what she has seen in practice, they work well together.
“It’s going great,” she said. “I see a lot of improvement every day. They’ve really been working hard just learning some little things that are going to make them a better team.”
Chavez is adapting to her new surroundings and says the change of scenery will make her “a better everything,” as it’s shaken things up for her, given her new challenges to overcome, new people to meet.
The players are adapting to her, too.
“They seem to be buying in to the things that I’m teaching them,” said Chavez, who reached nine state title games and won four titles with Portales. “They really want to be successful and they want to win.”
They will get their chance for victory No. 1 on Tuesday against Palo Duro.
“I don’t know much about them,” Chavez said of her upcoming opponent. “Our goal is to play hard, play agressive, and do the things we’ve been working on. I think we’re going to be OK.”
It will be an opportunity for those seniors to step up, show how they work with each other, show what kind of leaders they can be.
The eight seniors are: middle hitter Lexi Cole; outside hitters Kassidy Furrow and Makinzie Johnson; defensive specialists Kyli Osborn and Journey West; setters Jada Gillespie and Sydni Hill; and outside hitter/defensive specialist Katie Kelley.
“That’s the core of our varsity,” Chavez said. “The rest of the kids on varsity, we’ll see.”
Just since Chavez took over, she has watched her players up their games, either with incremental improvements or long strides forward.
“The most important thing to me this season is to improve every day,” she said. “That’s what I think about, that’s what I work on, that’s what my focus is on, to get better and better every day. And then things will start happening for us as we start playing. But every day I want to see an improvement.”
She has indeed seen it in specific and crucial areas.
“We’ve been working hard on our passing — passing meaning serve/receive — and our serving games,” Chavez said, “just really working on the fundamentals of it, just tracking the ball and reading the ball. I see see them get better every single day, and that’s a tough skill — serving the pass, serving with consistency, serving with speed. So every day something good happens for us.”
She hopes a lot of good things will lead to a lot of good days which lead to good weeks and a good season for the Wildcats.
“It’s going to be a work in progress,” Chavez said, “but I think it’ll come along.”
