Dolores Olguin-Trevino remembers when she left Brownsville Hanna, she had 351 wins.

Not much of one for numbers, she just left it there. She never even expected a 352.

Not long after she returned to the sideline, this time coaching St. Joseph Academy, someone told her she had hit the 400 mark.

“I hadn’t been dwelling on numbers, so it was a surprise,” she said. “I was done coaching and sat out a year.”

The idea of starting a program from scratch and building it until they reached the high school level, however, kept calling to her.

“I ended up putting everything I had into it and am still doing that – head, heart and gut,” she said last week days after eclipsing the 500-win mark. “It’s really not about the numbers but about being successful – of course that will include those numbers.”

It hasn’t been an easy task. Olguin-Trevino recalls literally begging teams to play them when they first started. Now, her pre-district schedule spans the Rio Grande Valley as the Bloodhounds play UIL teams in Classes 4A through 6A and from neighboring Brownsville schools to Roma, the other side of the Valley, some 120 miles away.

She has turned the fledgling program into competitors. The Bloodhounds recently defeated Hidalgo in the finals of the Hidalgo tournament in the best of three sets. The host Pirates are a perennial playoff team in Class 4A.

But now, as the St. Joseph Bloodhounds prepare for the TAPPS District 4-5A season, the road trips are as tough mentally, and maybe physically, as the games themselves. All games are bus trips between three and four hours long each way.

“It’s tough – they have four hours on the bus and most of time they’re not awake,” Olguin-Trevino said. “They probably stay up late thinking they have a four-hour ride, but then to get up out of that and get going, it’s tough. I don’t like it but it is what it is and we have to do what we have to do.”

Yvannia Sosa, Seanah Martinez and Gali Martinez pace the Bloodhounds’ offense while Carmina Tijerina, the libero, is an anchor on defense. In the semis and finals of the Hidalgo Tournament, Tijerina tallied 44 digs and 10 aces.

“There are just a few things we need to work on to solidify everything,” Olguin-Trevino said. “We’ve been letting everyone play heading into district but now it’s time to solidify. It’s a good start for us right now (11-3) and we want to keep it going.”

“They said they want to host a playoff game so we started looking at what it would take,” Olguin-Trevino said. “It means being district champ or finishing second and that what we have to work for that.

“I think we are perfectly capable of doing it. It comes down to the mental toughness. We have the physical ability and athleticism. They don’t even know how athletic they really are. If we stay the course we should finish first or second.”

Olguin-Trevino said having a home playoff game could be the final step in her journey – but she thought that after 351 as well. To date, she has 26 players play college volleyball. She started the St. Joseph program with two teams and has grown it to six – three high school and three middle school teams.

“I would like to see these girls go farther than that first round and go as far as they can,” the coach said. “I’ve got the girls and if they can do it this year, I think that this year is it for me. I’ve been thinking about it for a few years. It’s tough, physically and the heat, it’s draining me. I want to use my arms when I’m 80 so I had to give up hitting balls – physically, I want to be able to take care of myself when I’m 80. But as long as I’m here, I’m still giving it my all and the girls do that too.”