Draft Prospect Profile: OH Lexie Almodovar
Almodovar has transformed herself into one of the A-10's most dangerous hitters and will be a fifth year player this fall.
Sitting down to write about Lexie Almodovar, an outside hitter on the Dayton Flyers, presents me with the opportunity to craft one of two stories. The first is a feel-good piece laden with clichés about overcoming expectations — her small size is pretty low hanging fruit for that kind of article. The other option, and in my opinion, the far more interesting one, is to introduce you her as one of the most dynamic players in the nation outside who you might not hear of elsewhere.
“You know, she’s an energizer bunny in a lot of ways,” said Dayton head coach Tim Horsman. “She actually detonates on the ball and she’s really, really hard to dig when she’s in rhythm. I really do think she’s learned a lot of other shots, she moves the ball around well and is really good at fooling the block, but I think how she got here and her calling card is still a whole lotta heat and tough to dig.”
Horsman puts his money where his mouth is when it comes to Almodovar. She is undoubtedly the beating heart of the Flyers’ offense. In each of her four years of school, she has stacked up increasingly large and impressive kill totals, culminating in 526 kills on 1330 attempts in 2023. The short list of players who got more offensive opportunities last season is a murderer’s row that includes current professionals such as Jill Gillen and Skylar Fields as well as LOVB affiliated student athletes Jess Mruzik and Raina Terry.
Almodovar herself was almost dismissive of those numbers, seeing them as an outgrowth of her increasing skill as a player.
“My first few years I wanted to muscle through and just hit every ball as hard as I could, and I came to realize that’s not gonna beat the best teams. I knew that I had to make that adjustment and that I had to play smarter. I’ve always gotten plenty of kills, but I think I started making less mistakes this year, and I think that really allowed me to gain confidence,” she said.
Becoming a smarter player is often difficult for athletes who have the physical talent to fall back on when they need to get out of a tight spot. The fact is, against Atlantic 10 competition, Almodovar can win kills on the merit of her vertical jump — which is north of ten foot despite standing at just 5’8 — and powerful arm alone. She explained to me that her goal is to be “crafty” and have a selection of shots “that actually score instead of just taking the other team by surprise,” which got a chuckle out of Horsman when I read that quote to him.
“We have a lot of fun with that. She has a great roll shot, and we finally got her to tip every once in a while and throw in an offspeed shot every once in a while because she’s pretty high, hard, and heavy most of the time,” he said.
In Horsman’s eyes, her transformation into a smarter player has shown itself in her decisions out of system, which he called elite, and her ability to tool the block instead of trying to blow the ball past defenders.
Even if that tip shot never becomes a staple for Almodovar, she’s more than a one trick pony that clobbers the ball at the net. No team in D1 volleyball hit for more aces than the Flyers, either on a cumulative basis (their 278 was 23 more than second place) or rate basis (their 2.26 aces per set was .20 higher than second place). Leading the charge was, you guessed it, Almodovar, who Horsman called a home run server.
She outlined a take-no-prisoners mentality as the key to her success.
“We are just aggressive in everything we do from the service line, so in my head I’m thinking, ‘How can I get this team out of system? How can I make this a good situation for my team? And who do I need to serve to make that happen?’ I’m just thinking about… my process, having a high toss in front of me, contacting the ball so that it floats the way I want it to. But, I’m definitely not thinking ‘Just don’t miss,’ especially when the moment is big,” she said.
As much as I don’t want to write a “small but mighty” type story, it would be criminal not to mention that Almodovar was recruited, incredibly, as a libero because of her diminutive stature. The coaches at Dayton quickly saw her arm talent would be wasted as a defensive specialist. In an ironic twist, it’s the skills most associated with libero play that need more refining during the upcoming season, namely, passing and defending the open court.
When I asked Almodovar to go into a little detail on how she wanted to get better, she zero in on her defensive range as a sore spot.
“I am really trying to work on just digging more balls and trying to put myself in a better position to be better defender. The best defenders have a big range and can dig a lot of balls that you think might be kills for the other team. So, I’m trying to get better at defending those harder balls and keeping points alive for longer, instead of a ball that I probably could dig, but maybe not, is a kill for the other team.”
On a broader level, a pro team evaluating Almodovar as a potential draft prospect may take issue with her entire career being played in the A-10. There’s always a measure of healthy skepticism about how well the perfomance of a mid-major conference player will scale to pro sports, especially in a time when transferring to the SEC or ACC would be relatively easy.
Opportunity or talent were never what kept her at Dayton, though. To Almodovar, leaving the Flyers behind was simply out of the question. She was always going to be a career Flyer.
“I committed when I was 15 to Dayton. I’ve known the staff for a good chunk of my life. They’ve really shaped me into the person I am today on the court and off the court. It never felt like the right thing to do to kind of leave them behind, if that makes sense. I’ve never considered transferring out. I’ve never had the thought that I would be happier somewhere else,” she said.
The PVF hasn’t been around long enough to establish a precedent for how well smaller conference superstars like Almodovar can be expected to make the transition. However, we know it can be done; one of this season’s most prolific rookies is Hannah Maddux, who was selected from South Alabama University.
Horsman believes that if she’s used in the right system, Almodovar could absolutely be an asset for a professional team.
“I think she for sure can play professionally. I don’t know if that’s overseas. I think there are a lot of really good hitters in the new professional league here. I think when you set her in a pretty good tempo, at a pretty fast tempo, I think she’s pretty tough to stop,” he said.
Although she wants to be a coach someday, Almodovar isn’t yet sure what route her career will take to get there. Like many players I’ve had the chance to speak to, playing pro volleyball stateside just didn’t seem like a possibility to her until very recently.
“I’ve always wanted to play pro. My dad is Puerto Rican, and he played pro volleyball in Puerto Rico for several years. That was always my dream - to go over there and play like he did - but that was before, obviously, the opportunity in the states, which has been unbelievable to kind of see unfold. It’s not like I want to graduate from Dayton and then immediately get into coaching. I’m not in any hurry to be done playing if there is an opportunity,” she told me.
You don’t have to squint to see that dream coming true in the not too distant future.
Some quotes were lightly altered for clarity. You can read the full transcripts here. Watch a full Dayton Flyers game here.