Dayton sweeps Towson in NCAA Women’s Volleyball Tournament opener

Next up is a second-round matchup with Washington at 3:30 p.m. on Thursday at the CHI Health Center in Omaha, Neb.

Towson entered undefeated, but the Tigers had been limited to six matches.

They had only lost one set on the year — and none in their previous four matches — but dropped their first against the Flyers 25-15.

Dayton won the second set 25-16 then finished it off with another 25-16 victory.

Lexie Almodovar led the Flyers (14-1) with nine kills while West Liberty-Salem grad Jamie Peterson had eight.

Bridget Doherty logged 25 assists for UD and added seven digs. Maura Collins also had seven digs for the Flyers while Alayna Yates had six blocks and six kills.

Lindsey Winner, a freshman from Versailles, had the game-winning kill for UD.

Dayton has made 15 NCAA Tournaments but never advanced past the second round.

To do that this time, the Flyers will need to beat the sixth-seeded Huskies.

Washington was one of 16 teams to receive a bye in the first round.

The Huskies won the Pac-12 and are in the tournament for the 19th straight season. They made the Elite 8 in 2019 and have made it to at least the Sweet 16 in seven of the past eight years.

Coach Keegan Cook’s team is headlined by Pac-12 Setter of the Year Ella May Powell while outside hitters Samantha Drechsel and Claire Hoffman joined Powell on the first-team All-Pac-12 squad.

The Flyers and Huskies have faced off once before, a five-set win for Washington in 2018.

“It’s been a while for us to get past this first round, and I think our players played loose but focused,” Dayton coach Tim Horsmon said. “We’re excited about moving on to the next round.”

He said Washington likely will present a different challenge from a physical standpoint.

“(Winning) is probably more about how we play,” he said.

“I think we play, tempo-wise, a lot faster than they do, but they have some big, physical athletes that are I think are going to present issues for us in the front row blocking and their physicality. But we’ve also built a team that I think can play with teams like that because we also have some big, physical players that can play at that level as well. So we’re gonna have to play well, but I would probably say the same thing to Washington. They’re gonna have to play well.”