Anyone could ask, "What if?" with Whitney Dosty.
What if she had been healthy this whole time? What if she had avoided those injuries? How good would she be?
As one of the country's top volleyball recruits, Dosty spurned schools such as Texas and Florida to play for her hometown university. But knee injuries, a broken pinkie and a stress fracture in her ankle have limited Dosty during her five years with the Arizona Wildcats volleyball team. Knee injuries forced her to sit out her sophomore season in 2007.
Yet, Dosty has some time to silence the "what if" question. The 20th-ranked Cats (20-11) play Northwestern (19-12) on Friday in the first round of the NCAA tournament in Cedar Falls, Iowa.
"No one plans on getting hurt, so I'm disappointed I was hurt and had to sit out," said Dosty, a redshirt senior outside hitter.
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"Now I feel like I'm getting a second chance to be able to go and do everything I wanted to do."
The timing couldn't be more ideal for Dosty. She is healthy after dealing with a stress fracture in her right ankle for nearly two months. She played what coach Dave Rubio described as the best match of her career when she tallied 30 kills Friday in a 3-1 loss to fourth-ranked Cal.
Dosty also played back row, staying on the court during all rotations, which she hadn't been doing during the injury. She averages 3.06 kills per set, second on the team.
"She can change the complexion of every game," Rubio said.
Rubio has long said Dosty will play her best volleyball beyond college. When she arrived at Arizona, she featured impressive tools - a former ballerina with a 6-foot-3-inch frame, she could leap and touch 10 feet 10 inches. But she was raw in volleyball. She had played the sport for about two years before she arrived at the UA.
Then came the injuries. As a child, she had Osgood-Schlatter disease, a knee condition that later led to surgery in 2007 after the patella tendon pulled on the bone near her left knee, causing it to chip. Before the season, she had torn the medial collateral ligament in her right knee, then developed tendinitis in the other knee. She said she continues to play through some knee soreness she describes as "normal tendinitis."
Last season, she missed two weeks because of a broken pinkie.
Being close to home allowed Dosty to deal with frustration associated with her injuries, said her dad, former UA basketball player Robbie Dosty.
"The fact she actually was home during those times made it a lot easier to give her that moral support she needed," he said. "That has helped her to be able to cope with those injuries."
Rubio said Dosty handled the aggravation of injuries well and played through pain. Both he and Robbie said Dosty has grown more extroverted over the years.
"She's gregarious. She talks. She has opinions," Rubio said. "When she first came here, she was so shy and demure and really one of those people who didn't want to be noticed, even though she's 6-3, 6-4. It's been a great evolution for her."
Besides displaying athleticism and explosiveness on offense, Dosty has improved defensively and has become a more complete player, Rubio said.
In the future, Dosty said she hopes to play in the Olympics and overseas. Her older sister, Sybil, an Arizona State product, is playing basketball in Slovakia.
A professional volleyball career would pull Dosty away from home, where she elected to stay for college. Never mind the "what if" question about whether she could have played elsewhere.
"I've enjoyed it a lot," she said. "Obviously, I was kind of curious what it would have been like to go away for college, but I'm glad I stayed here and got a chance to play in front of my family and friends and the Tucson community."
Up next
• What: Arizona vs. Northwestern at NCAA tournament
• When: 5 p.m. Friday
