The Dolores school board approved the promotion of Tiffany Hill to head coach of the varsity girls basketball program during its meeting last Tuesday, superintendent Scott Cooper confirmed via email.
Hill, who served as assistant to Larry Schwartz for the last two seasons, steps into the head coaching role after Schwartz resigned following the 2015-16 season.
Schwartz led the Lady Bears to a 19-24 record in two years at the helm, but decided to resign due to the workload of coaching both the boys and girls teams. He will continue to lead the varsity boys squad.
“It was really hard to give up those girls, but it just came down to the workload and the amount of time I had to spend,” Schwartz said in April after resigning. “I’m going to miss it. But I know those girls are on the right track and there’s a ton of talent.”
Hill, a 2000 DHS graduate, has experience coaching at the middle and high school levels, and she’s gotten to know student-athletes while serving as an assistant basketball coach for the previous two years and assistant volleyball coach for the last three.
She believes that having already established a relationship with many of the players will serve beneficial.
“I think it’s easier to step in because you already have chemistry built with the team and the players and you’re already established with the community and the school,” she explained. “So I definitely think that it has helped having been an assistant before stepping up to head coach.”
Hill is still working to finalize who her assistants will be for the 2016-17 season, but she’s already put the Lady Bears to work this summer at open gym and with a team camp at Fort Lewis University.
When it comes to strategy, Hill can take pieces from the schemes Schwartz put in place – but she’s also got her own plans.
“I definitely want to put in some new things,” she said. “I have some ideas for both defense and offense of things that I want to kind of change up and move around a little bit. Not major changes, but some changes.”
Hill inherits a team coming off a 12-9 season that included a trip to the Class 2A Region 1 Tournament.
Although the Lady Bears graduated five seniors from last year’s squad, they will bring back a handful of young players that gained valuable experience.
With the team’s leading scorer, Aryelle Wright, and top three rebounders, Wright, Tatum Majors and Madi Archuleta set to return – the future looks bright.
“Obviously a winning season is good, but that’s not my only goal,” Hill said of the future. “I really want to pull the team together.”
“It’s a younger team,” she continued. “And even though some of the girls played on varsity last year, they didn’t get a lot of court time. So we’re really just establishing a working chemistry between each other and learning to play with each other and just getting that experience in to grow in the following years.”