The Arizona Wildcats snapped a five-match losing streak in Boulder last week, topping Colorado to pick up their fourth win in Pac-12 play.
Five Wildcats finished with seven or more kills, but it was outside hitter Sofia Maldonado Diaz who led the way. The sophomore finished with a career-high 26 kills.
“I just tried to do what the coaching staff asked me to do,” Maldonado Diaz said. “I feel that I played kind of relaxed, not overthinking the things. Also, I feel that the team trusted me in that game.”
The Guadalajara native will lead the Wildcats into a pair of home matches this weekend, starting on Friday night against Stanford. The Wildcats will play the 15th-ranked Cardinal at 7 p.m., then host Cal on Sunday at noon.
Against Colorado, Maldonado Diaz recorded 64 total attempts on a stellar .313 hitting percentage. Coach Dave Rubio said the career performance was based more on volume, but says Maldonado Diaz is becoming more reliable as she gets older.
“Sofia is eventually going to be an elite-level player because of the fact that she’s such an astute learner,” Rubio said. “Eventually, things are going to get really comfortable for her. She’s going to be able to do everything without thinking and then once you get to that point, then she’s just going to be able to function at a really, really high level.”
Friday’s win came after what Rubio described as a weekend of “travel woes.” The Wildcats missed their Thursday flight to Boulder and didn’t arrive at the hotel until 2:30 p.m. the next day. The match was postponed an extra hour to accommodate the traveling miscues. Rubio expected more. “The conference should have canceled that match,” he said.
“When we won the game, we were excited, obviously,” Maldonado Diaz said. “After all the problems we had with the airport and flights and everything, we were so tired.”
Maldonado Diaz has already established herself as a cornerstone player, ranking second on the team in kills with 234 and total attacking attempts at 664 after leading the team in both stats as a freshman last season.
Maldonado Diaz’s collegiate journey has been a long one.
She moved to Tucson in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic that pushed the 2020-21 season into the spring semester, all while trying to overcome a language barrier and adjusting to a style of volleyball much different than in her home country of Mexico.
“I think everything for her last year was difficult,” Rubio said. “Even though her numbers were good and she was (Pac-12) Freshman of the Year, I think all of that was just built on just previous knowledge about volleyball … She’s got an instinctual feel for the game.”
Maldonado Diaz says Year 2 has been much easier.
“The language feels so much comfortable now,” she said. “With this team, I feel that the communication is pretty good with everyone. I feel more comfortable talking with the coaching staff.”
Maldonado Diaz says she has not been shy about stepping up into a bigger role and has been embracing the responsibility, even though she’s an underclassman.
“I really like it,” Maldonado Diaz said. “I don’t feel like the younger player. I know I am but I feel more like, ‘OK, you’re on this team, you need to do what you know, what you learn every day. But I really like to take the lead of the team if I can do it.”
Older competition in the Pac-12 conference hasn’t scared her off either. Maldonado Diaz has been learning from the competition and embracing it.
“When I play against UCLA, Washington, they have ‘super seniors,’” Maldonado Diaz said. “I love watching them because it’s kind of like something we were going to do. As a team, we’re going to be there.”
