I dont think anyone can say we did not max out our potential this year. We went as far as our talent would realistically allow. Taking a set from PSU was another small step, but an important one. As Becky stated, the talent gap is Herculean based on street cred. To beat PSU tonight we had to play our best match of the season and PSU would have to have an off night -- plus a few whistles would have to go our way. Thats just the reality.
For the talent on board, we squeezed every last ounce of juice from the orange. All you can ask. We punched above our weight class tonight. We need to get better to legitimately feel we can and should beat teams like PSU on their home court, but we will get there.
More than anything we were among the most mentally tough teams in the country this year. This was not our most talented UD team. We had some holes. But once healthy we basically did not lose until tonight. Thats 25 wins in a row.
More importantly, this team had to play hard every night to win. Not a ton of matches they could just "mail in" like perhaps a few Dayton teams in the past with Barhorst or Fletemier pummeling opponents into submission. We didn't have quite the same number of weapons as years past so we had to grind out more matches. In a lot of them we didnt play especially well, but we were tougher upstairs between the ears and played to the last point EVERY MATCH.
Thats what I enjoyed most about this team: they knew they had to work hard to win and without that pure talent alone would not be enough. Teams like WKU,
SLU, GW, and
URI among others could have easily beaten us if it was just talent vs talent. Ten points probably decided five Ws and Ls this year alone between these foes. All of those teams were more or less in constant parity. The difference was we were tougher in the critical junctures and expected to win the "big" point" when opponents "hoped" to win the big point.
Horsmon took this train as far as it could go this year. Cant ask for more than that. At some point you run into players that are just a little bigger, stronger, faster, more skilled. That happened tonight and you have to acknowledge it. But we didnt roll over and made PSU earn the W.
We'll get better. This is only year two in the Horsmon 2.0 reboot. Some big departures, but I like the trajectory. And goes without saying UD is a program that breeds an expectation of success. Thats not going to change. Next year the expectation will once again be an undefeated A10 season, and advancing in the NCAAs and anything short of that will be considered disappointing.
