Consistent contribution from the middle can seem like a distant dream sometimes. That’s why middle blockers are so highly sought after in the transfer portal. Arizona seems to have found a gem in transfer Kiari Robey, who dominated in the Wildcats’s 4-1 (25-22, 25-27, 25-21, 25-21) victory over Alabama on Saturday morning.
Robey stood out with a career-high 16 kills on .438 hitting and seven total blocks (two solo) against the Crimson Tide. Over the weekend, she had 34 kills on .508 hitting and 13 blocks in 10 sets.
Alayna Johnson, who moved back into the starting lineup, was also an effective scorer from the middle position. She had eight kills on .400 hitting. Her kills tied pins Jaelyn Hodge and Carlie Cisneros for second most on the team. Johnson also had two total blocks for a total to contribute nine points.
“The philosophy was to…move the ball around a little bit,” Stubbs said. “Have AJ go to the spot that we’ve been working on, so she’s able to step into that versus always they’re just going to be a slide attacker. Avery did a good job finding them.”
Robey’s kills matched outside hitter Jordan Wilson for the match high. Wilson also had nine digs, one ace, and two total blocks. On the downside, she had one reception error and six service errors.
Wilson wasn’t the only one to have difficulties on the serve. The entire team once again struggled with the serve. That has been the case in four of six matches this season.
“Sixteen missed serves,” Stubbs said.
It wasn’t so much the number that bothered Stubbs, though. It was the timing and nature of the service errors.
“What I don’t want is back-to-back misses or misses into the net,” she said. “But part of it is we press so hard. Today if we had just put a ball on a person, that would have sufficed, but we like the show and the glamor of it, so we push on the gas pedal a little too hard sometimes.”
Stubbs also doesn’t want to harp on it so much that the team gets passive on serve.
“Anytime you get to walk away with three wins, you take it and you run and watch the development of the team from that you feel good about it,” Stubbs said. “But the main thing is just the serving at this point. But it’s one of those things you got to find the gauge of telling them to get it in without telling them to be passive. You never want to tell a player to be passive, because then they think you don’t believe in them, and then they start second-guessing themselves, and then they become passive in the wrong arena, the wrong time.”
With the 3-0 weekend, Arizona improved to 6-0 this season. Going on the road and continuing to win is important to Stubbs. She was especially pleased that a group of players that includes three freshmen and a transfer in her first year at Arizona figured it out mostly on their own.
“I like the fact that I never called a timeout,” Stubbs said. “And I didn’t realize that until one of the guys told me, because how do you go all weekend and not call a timeout? But part of my philosophy is to have them try to figure out stuff, versus us bailing them out, which is what happens way too often in this day and age, they look for someone to save them versus figuring out how to make it happen on their own.”