Aiwane Iboaya watched as senior middle blockers Adeola Kosoko and Stefani Eddins led the front row for the volleyball team last season.

Then a freshman outside hitter, but also a player who had been a middle blocker in high school, Iboaya said she only momentarily missed her old position.

“A little bit, but when I saw how hard they were working, I was like, ‘Nah, I’d rather play outside,'” Iboaya said.

So she spent her first season on the outside, racking up 157 kills while starting 14 of 30 matches. But with the departure of Eddins and Kosoko after the 2005 season, Iboaya knew it was only a matter of time before she would be back to her more familiar position of middle blocker.

And with that return to the middle this season, Iboaya said, came an increased workload.

“I knew it was going to be a lot of work,” Iboaya said. “It takes a special athlete to play middle because you have to be disciplined. You have to be strong, and it’s one of the most tiring positions — in volleyball next to being the setter.”

While she had only spent a year away from being middle blocker, there were still things for Iboaya to adjust to as she came back to the position. One of the main things she noted was the adjustment from playing middle in the club volleyball she played in high school to playing middle on the Division I collegiate level on which she now plays.

“It sounds kind of weird ’cause I only did outside for a year,” Iboaya said. “But I had to re-learn what it was like to be a middle.”

On top of the learning curve, the sophomore has also been fighting through a knee injury since the team’s Sept. 30 loss against Wake Forest.

First-year coach Charita Stubbs said she could see Iboaya’s physical strengths right off the bat, but that Iboaya is still making progress in learning more about the game.

“There’s just so much of the game she doesn’t understand. So a lot of the things that she does [are] just being athletic,” Stubbs said. “And at this point, that’s all you really need is someone who’s athletic and who listens.”

But as Iboaya takes pointers from Stubbs or hears the taunts of opposing players, she said her family experience has taught her how to keep those things in the proper perspective. Being the youngest of six children, Iboaya said she certainly found out how to deal with the doubt of others. “My brothers taught me already to be tough and to have tough skin and not let other people bother me,” Iboaya said.

And even as she continues to work on her game, there’s another area on which Iboaya is focused. Stubbs has pushed her to get out of her comfort zone by being more vocal on the court and said the sophomore has responded, adding there is still room for improvement.

Iboaya also said she is working on speaking up more.

“On the court, I’m naturally a quiet person, and coach Rita, she tells us to step outside of our boxes. So for me to step outside my box is talking,” Iboaya said. “As silly as that sounds, it’s really hard for me to talk. So I have to try to force myself, to push myself to do more than usual.”

But even when she’s not vocalizing her confidence in her own game, Iboaya said she is still sure of what she can do on the floor.

“I have quiet confidence in myself,” Iboaya said. “I’m not the type of person that goes out there boasting about how good I am.”

And that confidence manifests itself in her mindset about being back at middle blocker this season.

“I like blocking. I like hitting,” Iboaya said. “And I like taking on the hard roles.”