CAA-champion Towson, 29-1, ready to face Georgia in NCAA Tournament

This team seems to have it all: Experience, promising youth, height, athleticism, a win over a top-10 team, a run of four consecutive conference titles and a 29-1 record this season.

This is Towson, the little Colonial Athletic Association school that could — and believes it can — make the nation stand up and take notice in the NCAA Tournament. Towson has an NCAA RPI of 31 and has won 11 matches in a row.

The Tigers, under 10th-year coach Don Metil, have won 90 of their past 100 matches, a nice round number that spans the four CAA championship seasons from 2019-22. Towson’s lone loss was in a conference match against Elon on October 15.

But Towson, which plays the SEC’s Georgia (22-7) on Thursday in Austin, with the winner getting top-seeded Texas, is just 1-3 in NCAA Tournament matches in its remarkable run.

So what makes Metil & Co. believe 2022 can be different?

Go back to September 10, with Towson playing at Pitt near Metil’s hometown of Latrobe, Pennsylvania. The Tigers knocked off the then-No. 7 Panthers 25-12, 25-23, 16-25, 25-18.  It was Towson’s first win over a ranked program.

“The win against Pitt was very exciting,” said sophomore outside hitter Victoria Barrett, a first-team all-CAA selection and product of Stafford, Virginia, who transferred from NM State. “We went into that game as the underdog. But once we did beat them, I think we realized we’re a lot more capable of stuff that we didn’t think we were capable of before.”

Added Metil, who the CAA Coach of the Year for the fourth time: “Right after the match, we went back into kind of a secure area, and I just told the girls that win was for every person I was looking at on the squad who was told they were too short, not talented enough. That win was for all those kids.”

Barrett might have been one of those thought to be too short. Listed at 5-foot-9, Barrett has outstanding leaping ability that she attributes to leg strength she developed while spending her youth as a dancer. She averages 3.07 kills per set (seventh in the CAA), hitting .262.

“We knew she was going to be impactful,” Metil said. “Her athleticism is probably unparalleled in our gym … For her to be in six rotations, pass, play defense, she has a pretty high volleyball IQ … she just causes a lot of problems for other teams.”

The same could be said for junior opposite Nina Cajic. The 6-foot-1 Serbian led the conference in hitting at .376 and earned…