Dayton (0-2) closes out its first weekend of play against host Louisville (1-1), who beat Texas A&M in a 5-set slugfest Saturday evening. Dayton dropped their second consecutive heartbreaking 5-set match earlier in the day against #10 Florida, 3-2 (25-21, 25-17, 14-25, 23-25, 13-15). The Flyers needed to be two points better in either the 4th set or the 5th set and we would be lauding the greatest victory ever for Dayton volleyball. But don’t feel sorry for this team. They played at a level that no Flyer squad has ever played. This team of Gladiators gave #10 Florida, loaded with TEN Top 50 players almost more than they could handle. Dayton has ONE Top 50 player (Brooke Westbeld). Iconic Florida Head Coach had nothing but praise for Dayton in the post-match interview. The Flyers played confident, skilled, fearless and with a take-no-prisoner poise. They battled every point and won a whole bunch of them.

Prepare. Play. Learn. That’s what this weekend is all about. And now it’s time to win. Louisville is a young team. They graduated both the ACC SOY and LOY, two players that caused Dayton fits in last year’s NCAAs. It’s payback time. I’m predicting a 3-1 win.

#25 Louisville -Sunday, September 1 @ 1 pm

Nine months ago the Flyers walked off the court in the first round of the NCAAs having lost to Louisville 3-0. And although the Flyers were competitive in all three sets (21-23-21) nobody on this team can feel good about that match. The Cardinals shut down OH Alli Papesh. They shut down OH Sierra Pla. They shut down MB Kendyll Brown. Heck, they even shut down OH Lauren Bruns and nobody shut down Bruns last year. Dayton hit .155 for the match to Louisville’s .232. Louisville also out-dug UD by +10. Of course, we didn’t have Jamie Peterson last year. So how do the two teams stack up now?

For starters, Louisville played a nine-player rotation with every player going 3-sets. Only four of those players are still on the squad. Gone are ACC Setter of the Year, ACC Libero of the Year, two OHs and an MB. The setter and libero were All-Americans and that’s powerful because your libero and setter are two-thirds of your offense a high percentage of the time. This year, the Cardinals have only one senior and two of their four juniors are transfers. The Cardinals are young like Dayton. The difference is Louisville will more have multiple true freshmen in their rotation whereas Dayton will have none.

Dayton will have Jamie Peterson. In the Florida match, Peterson battled against Thayer Hall, the 2018 #1 recruit and the Gatorade National Player of the Year coming out of high school. Both players where outstanding, but if you’re honest, you have to say Peterson was a little better. Peterson’s stat line: 23 kills-7 errors-60 swings-.267 hitting %-6 assists-1 ace-13 digs-3 blocks-26 points. Thayer’s stat line: 25 kills-8 errors-67 swings-.254 hitting %-2 assists-0 aces-10 digs- 1 block-26 points.

Head Coach Dani Busboom Kelly, in her second season at Louisville, landed the 16th ranked recruiting class featuring four Top 100 recruits (#30, #55, #61 and #97). Fr MB Amaya Tillman (#30) and Fr S Shannon Shields (#61) played against Florida. Shields was Arizona’s high school POY, but Tillman is making the biggest contributions so far this season.

“Tillman is the anchor of this talented class for Louisville,” reported prepvolleyball.com. “A true competitor in every sense of the word, Tillman has the ability to block and kill balls against any team in the country. Tillman’s skill set should give the ‘Ville all the weapons they need to get back on top in the ACC and make a deep run in the NCAA tournament.

To replace the SOY, Busboom Kelly brought in Jr S Tori Differ who started every set last year at TCU. Differ also spent the summer playing in USA Volleyball’s pipeline to rave reviews. Differ has played steady this weekend. Replacing the LOY will fall to Jr L Alexis Hamilton (Top 250). Sr OH Melanie McHenry (#47 recruit), R-Jr MB Piper Roe (#97 recruit) and R-Fr Aiko Jones from Jamacia will play major roles.

The Cardinal’s head coach Busboom Kelly is another young talent in college volleyball. She’s an alum of Nebraska where she started for four years, the first as Setter and the last three as Libero, earning Big 12 LOY in 2006. After graduation she spent time with the US National Training Team. Busboom Kelly spent one year as an assistant at Louisville before returning to Nebraska as an assistant coach for six seasons. Louisville hired her back in 2018 to lead the program.

The elite-talent scorecard stacks up with Louisville having six Top 100s, but four are freshmen. They have another three 250s for a total of nine. Dayton has ten Top 250s (three 100s). Last year in the NCAAs, the Cardinals had more ranked players and experience on the court. That is not the case this weekend. Both of those factors swing in Dayton’s favor. UD isn’t flying under the radar any more. Louisville knows this will be a dog-fight. Once again, we have to forget what happened the first two matches and only carry forward what we learned as a team, the chip on our shoulders and our Gladiator mentality. Time to get back up and throw everything we’ve got against the #25 ranked team in the country. We have a knockout punch. It’s time to learn how to use it.