‘We want to be great this year’ — UD volleyball a unanimous favorite in A-10 after 32-3 season

Dayton finished 32-3 last season, won the A-10 tournament for the 16th time in 21 years and was ranked in the top 25 for 13 weeks. It traveled to Pullman, Wash, for the NCAA tournament and beat Pepperdine in the first round for its 27th straight victory before losing to Washington State. Dayton fell to 0-17 in the second round of the tournament.

“We want to be great this year,” said coach Tim Horsmon, who has had two stints as coach and is now entering his 16th season. “We continue to desire to be in the top 25, but we haven’t made that deep tournament run yet. We lost to No. 2 Louisville early last year and then to Marquette, another top-25 program. I think winning either one of those gets us a home match in the NCAA tournament, which means everything.”

This season, Dayton has all the pieces to end that second-round drought. It starts the season ranked 22nd in the American Volleyball Coaches Association poll. A-10 coaches gave the Flyers all 10 first-place votes in the preseason poll, which was released Wednesday.

“We had a great season last year,” Horsmon said. “We have a lot of great returners. We are excited about this year.”

Dayton opens the season at 7 p.m. Friday against Northern Iowa in the Dayton Flyer Invitational at the Frericks Center. On Saturday, UD plays Florida International at 1 p.m. and Ohio State at 7 p.m. in the season-opening event.

Almodovar, the A-10 Player of the Year last season, was one of three Flyers named to the A-10 preseason team this season, along with Taylor Russell, a redshirt junior outside hitter from Whitehouse, Ohio, and Alayna Yates, a redshirt senior middle blocker from Cedar Falls, Iowa.

Another key returner is senior setter Alyssa Miller, of Overland Park, Kan. She was named to the A-10 second team last season.

“Every single year is a little bit more exciting than the last,” Miller said, “but this year is especially exciting since we ended so well last year, and we’re starting off at a great point this year.”

Dayton added four freshmen to the roster for the 2024 season: outsider hitter Corrie Anderson, of Monument, Col.; outside hitter Sydney Barrett, of Kings High School in Kings Mill, Ohio; middle blocker Abbie Cresse, of Fort Wayne, Ind.; and libero/defensive specialist Ella Joesting, of Prior Lake, Minn.

Horsmon expects LSU transfer Alia Williams, a middle blocker from Houston, Texas, to be the biggest contributor of the newcomers.

“We have a lot of maturity at a lot of positions,” Horsmon said. “The majority of the players who were great for us last year are back. It’s just a fun group to coach. They’re working hard. They have good attitudes and great chemistry.”