‘Just an unbelievable moment’ — Dayton beats Baylor to earn first Sweet 16 berth in volleyball

Dayton won 25-22, 22-25, 24-26, 25-21, 15-12, earning a Sweet 16 berth for the first time in school history. Entering this tournament, the Flyers had made 17 NCAA tournament appearances and won their first-round match 10 times but lost in the second round every time.

“Really ever since I’ve been at Dayton, this has kind of been our goal,” coach Tim Horsmon said after the match on the ESPN+ broadcast, “and we’ve had so many unbelievable teams that have had a chance and gotten really close. We talk a lot about legacy in this program, and I think that there are a lot of really incredibly proud Flyers and fans all over the country. It’s just an unbelievable moment for us.”

Dayton (31-2), the No. 5 seed in its corner of the bracket and the 23rd-ranked team in the American Volleyball Coaches Association poll, upset Baylor (23-8), the No. 4 seed and 16th-ranked team.

Dayton will play No. 1 seed Nebraska, the third-ranked team in the country, or the No. 8 seed University of Miami (22-10) in the Sweet 16 next week. Nebraska (30-2) and Miami play in the second round Saturday night in Lincoln, Neb.

Prior to beating Baylor, one of six Big 12 teams in the NCAA tournament, Dayton had lost only to programs from power conferences in the second round: Nebraska (2003); Michigan State (2007); Illinois (2009); Ohio State (2010); Oregon (2012); Penn State (2014 and 2015); Washington (2020); Purdue (2021); and Washington State (2023).

“We’ve just been in this moment so many times,” Dayton fifth-year outside hitter Lexie Almodovar said in the postgame press conference, “and we’ve continued to say that we can compete with the best teams in the country — that Dayton volleyball should be respected and that we belong playing against these great teams. Since I’ve been here, we’ve lost two five-set matches, tight like that, just back and forth games. We’ve wondered, ‘What is it going to take for us to be able to finish and get to that next round, the sweet 16.’ Like Coach was saying, this is legacy. This has been building up for a long time, and we finally had our moment. We just took full advantage of it. We said we were going to be fearless and that we were going to have fun and that we were going to leave it all out there. This moment is one of the best of my life, just because I know how many people have worked towards this — people who are here today and who are not. It’s just a combination of years and years of work.”

Against Baylor, Almodovar led Dayton with a career-high 34 kills. She became the first player in school history to record 2,000 career kills during the match. After the match, Horsmon wondered if there’s ever been a better 5-foot-8 player in college volleyball.

“I know there have been some really good ones,” he said, “but I got to coach this one, and she’s ours. I will go to the grave saying she’s the best one that I’ve seen.”

Liana Sarkissian had a season-high 17 kills, including the final two of the match after Baylor had cut Dayton’s lead to 13-12 in the fifth set.

Brooke Smith had a season-high 14 kills. Karissa Kaminski had 22 digs. Alyssa Miller had 51 assists.

“Everybody else did all the work,” Miller said. “They just made my job easier. Karissa was getting me absolute money, which made it so easy just to give it to Lexie and Lexie was on fire. I can’t really take any credit for it. These two did all the work.”

Alayna Yates and Sarkissian each had four blocks.

“Brooke Smith turned her ankle this morning,” Horsmon said, “and we didn’t think she was going to be able to go, so she had a (heck) of a match considering what she went through. Liana, I don’t have words. She was just dominant and carried a lot of that load today. Alyssa just made a lot of great choices. We passed really well. We made some great defensive plays . It was a fun match to play and to coach and hopefully to watch.”

In the first round Thursday, Dayton beat South Carolina 25-20, 25-15, 24-26, 25-10.

The Dayton volleyball team made history 11 days after the UD men’s soccer team earned a Sweet 16 berth for the first time in school history with a second-round victory against Michigan.

Dayton is the last Atlantic 10 Conference team alive in the tournament. Loyola Chicago, which beat Dayton 3-0 in the A-10 tournament championship at UD’s Frericks Center, beat No. 5 seed Brigham Young 3-0 in the first round Thursday but lost 3-0 to No. 4 seed Purdue on Friday.

Asked about that loss to Loyola on Friday, Horsmon said, “It was tough. We had a great year, and we didn’t play well, and they played great. Obviously them beating BYU yesterday kind of affirmed that they’re a really good team. I think it’s probably exactly what we needed, to be honest. We hadn’t lost in a while. We needed a reset, and we did a really good job of coming in and having great practices this week and resetting. My wife (Krista) is our performance coach, and she did a great job getting them mentally ready, and they had a great week.”