We all love the underdog story. It is a staple of American sports and culture. However, what about the other team? The overdog, the team that has been dominant the whole season only to be outplayed by a worse team on one occasion.

The Washington Capitals hockey team are an example of a regular season front runner that does not perform well in the playoffs. In the past two years, the Capitals have won the President’s Trophy, an award given to the team with the most points in the regular season. However despite their early heroics, the team has lost in the second round of the playoffs three years in a row.

This early exit was the same unfortunate fate of the RHS Co-ed volleyball team this year. Despite losing only one game during the regular season, the team lost in the first round of the playoffs to Watkins Mill, who finished under .500 during the regular season.

“We (Rockville) played really bad, [and] they only made two or three mistakes,” junior Ian Mendoza said.

With this being said, are we to insist that because the Caps or our volleyball team did not make it deep in the playoffs, that they are not a great team?

The simple answer is no. A team’s greatness is not defined by their postseason successes but rather by their overall performance throughout the season.

Greatness is determined by a team’s success over time. Therefore the playoffs, although it yields the highest level of competition, is a single moment or game and cannot be the sole identifier of a team’s greatness.

The regular season is significantly longer than the playoffs in all sports and provides accurate rankings over teams based on their successes in numerous contests. These rankings are what deems teams underdogs and overdogs.

Underdogs are called underdogs because, simply put, they are not as good as the team they are facing. Therefore a 6-4 team that beats a 9-1 team is not necessarily better than the other but rather they are better on that given day.

So the co-ed volleyball team, who won 10 games in a row this year, nine of which the opponent did not win a single set, is still a great team despite there one uncharacteristic loss in a single elimination playoff.