Dayton hosts the Atlantic 10 volleyball tournament this weekend at the Frericks Center and the stakes are high for the dominant, young team.

The Flyers finished their season last Saturday with a sweep over George Washington and now enter the postseason with an intimidating 26-3 overall record. Thanks to a 14-1 conference mark and a tiebreaking victory over St. Louis, the team also holds the top seed for the tournament that begins tonight.

The tournament kicks off Friday night with two opening round games, and Dayton will then play the lowest remaining seed in the semifinals Saturday night. After that, the two semifinal winners will appear in a nationally televised game on CSTV Sunday at 4 p.m.

Although there is only one senior on the roster this season, these Flyers could indeed make A-10 history if they are able to take care of business at Frericks. Two more victories and Dayton will become just the second team ever and the first since 1990 to win five conference tournaments in a span of seven years.

That particular lone senior is defensive specialist Chelsy Christoff. During her first year in 2006, the Flyers were the No. 2 seed in the regular season but lost the tournament championship to St. Louis at Frericks.

Dayton captured the conference crown over Xavier at Charlotte University in 2007, but the tides turned again last year. The championship was unsurprisingly another rematch of the No. 1 Billikens of St. Louis and the No. 2 Flyers, but this time it was at SLU's home court.

Dominating throughout and finishing off Dayton in just three sets, the Billikens won by the final score of 25-15, 27-25 and 25-19. It was a low point for the UD players despite the fact they made it into the NCAA Tournament as an at-large bid, and it remains in the back of the minds for the team this year.

"Last year's loss was big to us," said redshirt junior Lindsay Fletemier. "My first year we lost to SLU here and I just do not want Chelsy to go out on that note."

This year, the Flyers hope to take full advantage of their home court advantage at the Frericks Center.

"I think it is great to be able to have friends and family and supporters all be able to watch us," head coach Kelly Sheffield said.

Understanding as well that Dayton could play three different teams in the semifinals and any of the five other teams in the title game, Sheffield has focused on other areas besides scouting this week.

"We are doing a lot more to take care of our side of the net with our current preparations," he said. "We are trying to clean up our offensive sets and work on our defense."

Mentioning how the team operates an entirely different style than the rest of the teams in the conference, Sheffield feels that his team has drastically improved since the beginning of the year. The new 6-2 scheme is starting to work wonders and many of the young players are starting to pick up rhythm out on the court.

After their lone conference loss of the season on Halloween at Xavier, the Flyers went straight back to their winning ways. In six consecutive victories since that point, the team won 18 of 20 sets to clinch the top seed in the tournament.

"It was a wake-up call when we lost to Xavier," Christoff said. "It showed all of us that we need to play our game every night or it is possible that we can lose to any team. You never want to have to figure this out by losing but it is better that it happened in regular season rather than in the tournament when it is too late to fix."