Women’s Volleyball Team Extends Winning Streak Against Davidson; Horsmon picks Up 250th Career Win

Alexandra Landman
Contributing Writer

The Dayton Flyers Women’s Volleyball team had a lot of celebrating to do on Friday night. Not only did they defeat the Davidson Wildcats in four sets extending their winning streak to 7-0, but the win marked head coach Tim Horsmon’s 250th career win and senior Lauren Bruns surpassed 1,ooo career kills.  

The Flyers got off to a quick start when their soft spikes over the net left the Wildcats scrambling. Their combination of strategic placement and capitalizing on a sloppy Davidson defense led to a first set win, 25-13.

After winning the first set, the Flyers rolled through the second (25-18), dropped the third (21-25), and came out on top in the fourth (25-10), remaining undefeated in their four year series against Davidson.

“Through three of those sets we played pretty clean,” Horsman said. “We did a pretty good job of taking care of our side of the court.”

After coming off a quick first set and equally as successful second, the Flyers took their soft spike strategy into the third, but trailed by five points when the Davidson defense started to cover the gaps in the court. At one point, there was a pause in the game over a score dispute, but that did not halt the Wildcat momentum.

Missed blocks and service errors, as well as a Davidson defense who took advantage of the Flyers’ lack of communication, caused them to drop the set 25-21.

“If we can get a little more consistent in what we’re doing and keep that high level play that we play at, I think we can be pretty tough,” Horsman said. “We can’t keep giving up sets where we go into matches and not play closer to our best.”

The Flyers put up 59 kills compared to the Wildcats 35, a majority of those in the fourth set. Bruns pushed the team to a quick 10-2 lead with consecutive kills, leaving the defense scrambling and unable to recover. The set finished in the same way it began, with Bruns at the net.The match point was her 17th kill of the night.

In his 10th season as head coach, Horsman credits the Dayton community for his success and feels that his accomplishments are a result of the opportunities placed before him.

“It’s just really easy to work here,” he said. “We have great support in the volleyball program, we have great fans who have been here since the first time I was here. We’ve had a lot of great coaches, a lot of great players and when you put all those things together, you can be a pretty good coach here because of everything that’s surrounding you.”

The Flyers will continue their homestand on Sunday when they welcome the only other 2-0 team in the Atlantic 10 Conference, VCU. Although Dayton currently leads the standings, VCU was the preseason favorite to finish first in the conference.

Dayton’s next five games are all against A-10 opponents, where they look to extend their winning streak en route to securing their fourth A-10 title in the last five years.
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