It’s bad enough to have just one day to get ready for a top 10 team. It’s even worse if you have to play one match then travel over 1,400 miles to play a top 10 team. It’s worse yet if you have to play one match then travel over 1,400 miles from a city of less than 70,000 people and no major airport to play a top 10 team.
Arizona volleyball will do just that this week when they play their third straight road match at Iowa State then return home to play No. 6 Arizona State.
The Wildcats had to play
road matches in cities over 960 miles apart last week. They flew from Tucson to Orlando, Fla. to face UCF. Three days later, they had to be in Houston to play the Cougars.
The saving grace of that trip was that both cities have major airports. It wasn’t easy, but Arizona pulled out the road sweep while only dropping one set.
The Big 12 schedule became even more unforgiving this week. Arizona will fly to Ames, IA for the match on Thursday. The Cyclones are a tough team in their own right. They are receiving votes in the AVCA poll after putting together a 15-3 overall record. They sit tied with Arizona at 5-2 in the Big 12 standings.
The Wildcats must be back in Tucson to take on ASU on Saturday. That match starts just over 48 hours after their match in Ames begins. Unlike the nightmare trip to Cincinnati and West Virginia last year, Arizona will be able to take a charter back home after the ISU match. Without it, they would not be allowed to practice on Friday before playing ASU.
“[The charter is] very important,” Stubbs said.“When we got our schedule and I was talking to our administrators, I was just like, you know, to put ourselves in the best position possible, I’ll do whatever I need to do in terms of asking and budget, moving things around. And the fact that they were able to respond to that is huge for us.”
Part of the “asking” was the golf tournament the program held in August this year. It was the first of what Stubbs has said will be an annual event.
Stubbs is constantly looking for fundraising sources to help her program compete. In the past two years, she has raised money to pay for summer housing so the players could stay in Tucson and bond over the break, for NIL payments to players in the pre-House settlement days, for the $150,000 Taraflex floors that are still awaiting their debut, and for travel demands that are new with the move to the Big 12.
That’s not to say that there aren’t advantages to being on the road. Players in multiple sports talk about the bonding experiences they have while traveling with their teams. Right now, the team is playing card and board games a lot.
“They’re playing this game,” Stubbs said. “Now, I forget the name of it, but it sounds like a lot of fun. They haven’t invited me yet, but they know I will win.”
One of the games the team is playing is Mafia. The other took some cajoling to get from senior outside hitter Jordan Wilson.
“Okay, I feel like I can totally say,” Wilson said. “There’s nothing bad about it. It’s called Secret Hitler. You’ve heard of it? I have just learned it. And I think our whole team, we just learned it this past away trip at UCF and Houston, and we have all hopped on board with it. We all love it. It’s so fun. It gets really competitive.“
Both are deduction games that are better with a lot of players. Deception is a key ingredient. That makes some Wildcats better at them than others.
“Okay, not to make their heads any bigger, but Haven (Wray), Brenna (Ginder), Ana (Heath) and Avery (Scoggins), and Carlie (Cisneros), also,” Wilson said. “Because I would say they’re more so the best liars on the team, and those games involve a lot of lying, because you want to hide your role. You don’t want them to find out.”
Other than card games, trips to Sephora, Target, and the mall help keep the players loose on their trips. Sitting in hotel rooms and watching movies or TV shows also passes the time. Then, there’s school work.
Earlier this season, Wilson said she primarily has online classes now. Last season was more difficult, because she took more in-person courses. That makes getting home in the wee hours of a Monday morning difficult. Regardless, work is required when on the road.
Up Next for Arizona Volleyball
Arizona Wildcats (11-6, 5-2) @ Iowa State Cyclones (15-3, 5-2)
When: Thursday, Oct. 23 at 4:30 p.m. MST
Where: James H. Hilton Coliseum in Ames, IA
Streaming: ESPN+
Stats: Arizona Live Stats
No. 6 ASU Sun Devils (16-2, 7-0) @ Arizona Wildcats (11-6, 5-2)
When: Saturday, Oct. 25 at 6 p.m. MST
Where: McKale Center in Tucson, Ariz.
Streaming: ESPN+
Stats: Arizona Live Stats
With all that going on, Wilson and her teammates still need to keep up their athletic performance. Wilson has done that with a vengeance this season, but has especially rebounded recently after a couple of games that weren’t up to her usual standards.
She has especially shown improvement in her backrow skills and in the mental game this season. Staying calm has helped her showcase skills that weren’t as strong in years past.
Last week at Houston, Wilson had a career high 24 digs in four sets. She was also targeted 20 times on serve receive. She’s especially focused on improvements in those areas because she feels she hasn’t been up to standards on serving.
“I was just out there, just trying to get every ball, making up for my serves, because lately I have been struggling with that,” Wilson said. “So I’ve been trying to make up for it in some other area. And defense, passing is an area that I think I could always improve on, and that could definitely make up for my game and the serving aspect. So during that game, it did not feel like I was getting that many digs. Obviously, I was super excited to see my stats afterwards at the game, but I was really just trying to focus on keeping the ball up and getting my team in play and allowing all the hitters to be available.”
Until last week, Wilson’s digs per set were actually down a bit compared to last year. That doesn’t tell the whole story, though. Watching her every match shows a kind of defensive scrappiness that hasn’t always been part of her game. After last week, she has pushed her digs per set to a career high of 2.41, narrowly outpacing the 2.40 she had last season. Her 8.94 digs per match are well above the 8.52 per match she had last season.
Wilson has done it while facing a more difficult slate of teams, as well. Through Oct. 19, the Wildcats have played 12 of their 17 matches against teams in the top 100 of RPI. They sport a 6-6 record in those 12 matches. Eight of those games are against the top 50, and they have a 2-6 record in those matches. Only five of their matches are against teams outside the top 100.
Last year was a very different story. On Oct. 20, 2024, they had played just seven games against the top 100 and six against the top 50. They were 1-5 against the top 50 and 2-5 against the top 100. Eleven of their matches were against teams outside the top 100.
The travel may be difficult this week, but Stubbs has been looking at the positives all year as the team fights for a berth in the NCAA Tournament. These will be two more matches against teams in the RPI top 50, which is exactly what she wants.
“I like our schedule in the sense of, we’re always in a position to play someone that is better than us, be it RPI, be it rank or what have you, or record, whatever the case may be, which is something that’s good for us, because it puts a challenge in front of us everywhere we go,” Stubbs said. “I think we work best when we’re in a situation where there’s something in front of us.”
