Dayton gets ‘solid grouping’ in NCAA volleyball tournament

Almodovar, a redshirt junior outside hitter from Noblesville, Ind., earned the spotlight as one of the premier players in Dayton’s section of the bracket. She’s the latest in a long line of standout UD players. She won the Atlantic 10 Conference Player of the Year award earlier this month, joining three-time winner Jamie Peterson (2019-21) and 10 other Flyers who have combined to win the award 18 times in the last 27 seasons.

Looking back on her decision to join Dayton as part of the 2020 recruiting class, Almodovar said, “I was recruited to be a libero a long, long time ago, but I think what attracted me here was just the people, the coaches, my teammates. Everyone was so welcoming and nice to me from the beginning, and I don’t think that has changed. I’ve built really amazing relationships here with my coaches and my teammates, ones that I’ll have for the rest of my life, and I’m just really grateful for that.”

Almodovar, who ranks 12th in the country with 4.47 kills per set, hopes to write another memorable chapter in her career this week. No. 19 Dayton (31-2) watched the selection show at Milano’s on Brown Street and learned it received a No. 5 seed and will play Pepperdine (19-8) at 7 p.m. (EST) Friday in the first round of the NCAA tournament on the campus of Washington State University in Pullman, Wash.

The Flyers cheered at Milano’s when their name appeared on the TV. They hadn’t experienced that moment since 2021.

“It’s always special,” said redshirt senior middle blocker Amelia Moore. “We’ve worked really hard this past season and in the spring in the summer to get to this point.”

Washington State (24-7), the No. 4 seed and 11th-ranked team in the country, will play Grand Canyon (23-7) at 10 p.m. in the other match at that site. The first-round winners will play at 10 p.m. Saturday in Pullman.

“I think that’s a solid grouping for us,” Horsmon said. “We’ll see what Washington State and Pullman’s like. But I think it’ll be fun for them to go somewhere different. My biggest concern was we’d been to Penn State so many times, and I thought going to Purdue again might be a real possibility. We thought Washington State was (a possibility). We just didn’t know if they would send us all the way out there. But we have fun on road trips, and they’ll enjoy that experience.”

This will be Dayton’s 17th NCAA tournament appearance. It has a record of 9-16 in the tournament and has never advanced past the second round.

Dayton played at Michigan State in 2003 in its first appearance and has played at Ohio State (2004), Notre Dame (2005), Illinois (2009 and 2018), Texas A&M (2011), Oregon (2012), Penn State (2014, 2015 and 2016), Purdue (2019 and 2021) and Nebraska (2020). Dayton also played at home in 2007, 2008 and 2010.

No Dayton team has had more momentum entering the tournament than this one. The Flyers have won a school-record 26 matches in a row. They had last week off from matches after winning the A-10 tournament on Nov. 19.

“We feel really good,” Almodovar said. “We had a really good week of practice. We challenged ourselves a lot during conference play to hold that standard that we had at the beginning of the year against those better teams. We’re really excited for some fresh, new competition.”

Dayton’s only losses were to Marquette, which was then ranked 12th and is now just outside the top 25, in its third match. Its other loss (and last loss), also in five sets, came on Sept. 6 against Louisville, which is ranked seventh. Louisville will face Horizon League champion Wright State in the first round of the NCAA tournament on Thursday.

The Flyers lost only two sets in 18 A-10 regular-season victories before winning two 3-1 matches in the A-10 tournament. Horsmon thought the tournament tests helped the Flyers.

“Saint Louis and Loyola played us really tough,” he said. “I could see our kids getting a little anxious about the possibility of losing a set. They’re going to have to overcome that as we continue to elevate and play better and better teams. So I thought it was good for us, and hopefully it got a little of the yips out.”

FRIDAY’S MATCH

Pepperdine vs. Dayton, 7 p.m., ESPN+