Lady Wildcats look to pick up where they left off last year

FORT DEFIANCE – Last season, the Chinle volleyball team surprised its 3A North counterparts by making a push to the regional tournament finals.

The fourth-seeded Lady Wildcats upset top-seed Tuba City in the semifinals with a marathon five-set win before giving second seed Monument Valley fits in a four-set loss.

“We want to come back and pick up where we left off,” Chinle coach Francine McCurtain said. “We didn’t make it to state, but we ended our season on a high note in the regional tournament. Our expectations this year is to step up our game.”

The fifth-year coach has a large senior and junior class.

“I have one sophomore, so I’m pretty heavy with upperclassmen,” she said last Friday during a four-team scrimmage at the Window Rock Events Center.

The teams that participated in the scrimmage were 1A St. Michael, 2A Valley and 3A schools Chinle and Window Rock.

“We literally had less than two weeks to get ready for the season,” McCurtain said. “We had tryouts (two weeks ago), so we had to rush a lot of things. It’s a good thing that I have a lot of veterans that are able to adjust and make do with what we have.”

The veterans consist of senior outside hitter Tayonna Mitchell, junior middle hitter Qoah Yazzie and setters Connie, a sophomore, and senior Hailey Burns. The two sisters will be Chinle’s primary setters.

“I’m looking at them to lead our team,” McCurtain said of the quartet.

The Chinle coach said she did have a summer program, but she wasn’t at full strength until the tail end of it. Most of her veterans didn’t join the team until July.

“It was kind of slow, I had a lot of eighth graders come out,” she said. “I was trying to play a mix of players that needed help with their skill sets and balance them out with the veterans that came out.”

McCurtain expects Monument Valley, Tuba City and Page to be the frontrunners of the 3A North. To be competitive with those squads, she acknowledged that they need to “speed up” their game.

“We’re trying to be a lot quicker,” she said. “We’re trying to read teams, and we’re reading hand signals. What it comes down to is communication. I want them to talk no matter what and a lot of times they start out shy.

“I want them to be instinctive,” McCurtain added. “That is one our biggest goals that we talk out of our mistakes. I want them to talk out the good notes and bad notes.”

McCurtain said she’s looking for her 2023 squad to have a successful season and, perhaps, surprise a few teams.

“We’re probably going to fit in the middle of our region, but I know this team is capable of beating anybody,” she said. “We have some tough teams to face, but we’re looking forward to it. It’s going to be a lot of fun.

“I’ve always said volleyball is a fun sport, especially if you have a little bit of synergy going on with our team,” she added. “As the season goes along, we’re going to try and create that.”

The Wildcats are entered into two tournaments this year. They are scheduled to play in the 3rd Annual Window Rock Lady Scouts Volleyball Tournament Sept. 1-2 and the Snowflake “Be Like NAT” Volleyball Invitational Sept. 15-16.

McCurtain said they were slated to play at the Epics Tourneys Volleyball Invite in late September, but that got scrapped.

“For some reason, we’re not able to make it into that tournament,” she said. “It’ll give us some time to refine our skills, look at film and do what we’re supposed to do at our best.”

---