Sophomore outside hitter Whitney Dosty gives the UA a significantly better chance to win in the ultra-talented Pac-10 this season.

Dean Knuth / arizona daily star

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Whitney Dosty stands 6 feet 3 inches, but can leap and touch 10-9 1/2. Dating to her ballet days, she still can do the splits.

The Arizona Wildcats volleyball outside hitter is, from a physical standpoint, the most impressive athlete on campus.

The daughter of former UA basketball player Robbie Dosty has height and vertical leap in her gene pool, but also more subtle attributes. Her long, strong fingers help deflect rockets at the net.

"If you were going to build a volleyball player from a purely anatomical perspective," said former UA assistant Chris Gonzalez, who has coached internationally, "I'd build her."

Not once during Dosty's 13 years of ballet, or two years of basketball, or three years of volleyball, had the redshirt sophomore ever missed so much as a practice.

But last year, she started feeling pain in her left knee. It hurt when she walked, ached when she even touched it.

"Not that I thought I was some kind of physical specimen, but that had never happened to me," the 20-year-old said. "I really didn't believe it at first."

Dosty did not play at the beginning of the 2007 season and eventually had surgery to remove bone chips behind her patella tendon. She redshirted the season.

Save for Chase Budinger and Willie Tuitama, it's hard to imagine any other athlete on campus whose personal success will dictate that of the team.

To win in Pac-10 volleyball, you need all-stars. Dosty is one.

The Wildcats reached the Elite Eight in 2005, but then posted back-to-back losing seasons for the first time since 1991-92. Their 14-17 (4-14 Pac-10) record last year was only one nonconference victory better than the 2006 season.

"Some of it's bad luck," UA coach Dave Rubio said of the past two seasons. "I can tell you, when you've got the talent, it makes it a lot easier to be successful.

"The talent is here. We've got the talent this year. We're a little young in some positions, but I'd still rather have the talent than have old kids that maybe aren't quite talented enough."

The Wildcats will certainly be better this season. Next year, they could be monsters.

"Physically, she's just a presence we haven't had in a while," Rubio said of Dosty. "You gotta have one of those big sticks. If you're gonna compete with the big boys, you gotta have somebody like Whitney."

The Pac-10's dominance of women's volleyball is almost unrivaled in college sports:

● Five of the past seven NCAA champions have come from the Pac-10.

● Since 2002, seven different Pac-10 programs have reached the Elite Eight.

● In the past 18 years, the national champion has come from the Pac-10 Conference 11 times.

● Three times in the past four years, three Pac-10 teams have reached the Final Four.

The amazing part of Dosty's injury is that it could be, long term, the best thing to happen to Arizona. She started playing volleyball in September 2004, the fall of her junior year at Salpointe Catholic High School.

By simply watching a season's worth of matches from the bench, Dosty saw more volleyball up close than she ever had in her life.

That came after — as a freshman two years ago — Dosty said she learned "twice as much" about the sport in one month than she did in high school.

With an extra year of experience because of her redshirt season, Dosty as a senior could reach — or eclipse — the accomplishments of the UA's three seniors from the 2005 Final Four team. Kim Glass, Bre Ladd and Jennifer Abernathy all rank among the top 20 players in the program's history.

Rubio said that, like Glass — who won a silver medal with the U.S. volleyball team at the Beijing Olympics last week — Dosty's best volleyball will likely come in her mid- to late-20s.

Dosty already has the Olympics circled — be it in 2012 or 2016.

"She's still a long ways away from being where she's going to be," Rubio said. "But she's a lot closer to it than she's ever been."