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The season for the University of Dayton women's volleyball team officially started Friday, Aug. 27, in the Frericks Center.

This was anything but just another tip-off to an ordinary volleyball season as the Flyers prepare to do something no other UD sports program has ever accomplished: make four straight trips to the NCAA tournament.

The Flyers enter the season ranked No. 21 in this year's American Volleyball Coaches Association preseason poll. Head coach Kelly Sheffield likes the recognition but is more concerned with where the Flyers rank at the end of the season.

"I think it's nice to be thought of as one of the nicer teams in the country by other coaches, but it's not really something I worry too much about," Sheffield said. "So it's nice, but hopefully we're finishing higher than that at the end of the year."

After losing just two players from last year's team, the squad worked hard over the summer preparing for the upcoming season.

Sheffield was pleased with the summer training sessions and said every player is better now than when they left last spring.

"In a lot of programs, when you leave for the summer, you hope that somebody doesn't lose something, or you hope that they don't lose too much," Sheffield said. "But the fact that every single player, every one of them, became a better athlete over the summer; there are not a lot of teams where that's happening."

With an NCAA tournament team coming back stronger than the previous year, it's easy to see why the Flyers are picked to win Atlantic-10 Conference again this season.

It doesn't hurt to have a two-time All-American in redshirt senior Lindsay Fletemier. Fletemier led the A-10 in both hitting percentage - finishing 11th nationally - and blocks per set last season. Her presence on the court can't be understated, according to Sheffield.

"It's impossible to overstate how important she is," Sheffield said. "Every single team in the country is game planning against her, and not many are able to slow her down."

UD's confidence is sky-high right now. With redshirt senior transfer Jessica Yanz in the rotation at setter, this team seems poised for yet another winning season.

"We're not taking any prisoners this year," Fletemier said.

The Flyers will need their senior leadership if they plan on surviving this year's schedule where every team has an RPI from last season of 90th or better.

"It's the toughest schedule in the country," Sheffield said. "There are what ... 330 teams and not a single team in the country has a schedule as challenging as ours, you know."

He said the team doesn't mind taking a few bumps and bruises over the season, though, if it makes them a legitimate threat for a national championship.

Fletemier and her teammates also are excited to go head-to-head against the country's best teams.

"We've never really played in front of a crowd that we're going to see at Nebraska when we play Illinois and Nebraska, especially," Fletemier said. "They're two great teams, so I'm excited for that."

Senior middle blocker Becky Novacek also is a Lowe's Senior Class Award finalist, placing among the top 30 volleyball players in the "student-athletes of the year" competition. While excited for the season's challenges, she warned about looking too far ahead.

"Personally, I look at it one game at a time, so I always look at the next game coming up, but I know there are a lot of highly ranked teams in most of our tournaments," she said.

As good as the Flyers are, they aren't without their faults. The team's most glaring weakness is an inconsistency to play at a high-level for long stretches of time, according to Sheffield. It's a problem stemming back to last season in the team's four losses.

But the Flyers can correct this with something they're especially known for: unity. Unity is the team's biggest strength, which they proved following the death of junior setter Kacie Hausfeld last April. The tragedy has made the team feel even more like a family.

"If you're comfortable with someone on a day-to-day basis, you're comfortable with them playing, and you know what to expect from everyone," Fletemier said.

Ultimately, what then can Flyer fans expect from this year's team? According to the third-year coach Sheffield, they can expect a team that represents the essence of the Dayton community.

Sheffield said fans can expect "hard working people that also have a lot of fun."

And Fletemier had one more thing to say about Dayton's season.

"I'm sure at the end of the season people will know the name, Dayton," she said.