in Pitt Football 858 Words

Pitt NCAA Win vs LIU Wrap-Up

Here is a wonderful bit of reporting (!) from our friend Annie.

Pitt volleyball in 5th straight NCAA tournament

Last night Pitt women’s volleyball played Long Island University (LIU) in the first round of the NCAA Championships held in Omaha. LIU received their bid by default of their opponent in the NEC championship game. LIU is a very young team, with two seniors, two juniors, four sophomores, and six freshmen. Based on that fact alone, we would expect Pitt to win easily. Pitt won the match 3-0, but it did not look good during the first set.

Set 1: Pitt has a habit of starting out slowly in the first set of their matches, and they followed that pattern again last night. With Kayla Lund at the service line, Pitt took a 6-0 lead to start the match. I was thinking- ‘great, this will be a cake walk’. Yeah, no. The score quickly became 7-5, and I started to get nervous. Pitt was playing out of system, scrambling after balls, missing blocks, and committing hitting errors. Bad passing is usually the main cause of playing out of system.

With the score 11-9 (Pitt), Pitt took a time out. That’s pretty early in the set to do that, and it was badly needed. Hitting and blocking errors continued, and LIU went on a 10-5 run. With the score 15-13 (LIU), Pitt took another time out. I had visions of a first round upset- there had been several already earlier in the day.

Pitt tied the score at 15, then down 15-16, finally went on a 7-0 run to make it 22-16. LIU came back to make it 22-20, then tied the score at 23. Oh no… upset watch begins.

But then Lund gets a kill to get Pitt to set point 24-23. LIU ties it at 24, then Lund gets two consecutive kills to give Pitt the 1st set win 26-24. It should have never been that close. During the set Pitt had 17 kills and hit .156 (a low percentage for success). LIU had 11 kills and hit .154. We needed to do better than that to advance past the 2nd round.

Set 2: Pitt substituted 6’5” Middle hitter Anastasia Russ in for Jordan Lockwood, who hit a negative % in the first set. She quickly gets two kills and two blocks. The team looks energized. Pitts races out to a 10-4 lead, which causes LIU to call T.O. Pitt serving specialist Zoi Faki serves the score to 15-5 causing LIU to use their second T.O.

At 20-10, freshman Cat Flood comes in to serve, which is always a good sign that the coach feels comfortable getting a young player some important playing time. Pitt is really moving well now-  the players are blocking and diving for balls. I noted that sophomore Chiamaka Nwokolo was really playing well during this set. Pitt wins set 2 by the score 25-11. Pitt hit .579 with 12 kills for the set, LIU -0.088 on 7 kills.

THAT is what Pitt needs to do to advance! Pitt took total control of the game, and looked like the team we all know they can be.

Set 3: Starts badly, with both team committing service errors (ugh). Russ is in the front line again, with senior captain Chinaza Ndee, Valeria Vazquez Gomez, and then Nwokolo after Ndee rotates out. Pitt goes ahead 9-3 with Kayla Lund more of a presence this set. Blocking was improved too.

LIU wins a challenge to make the score 14-7; at 19-7 there was a really good volley but Pitt lost the point. I can still appreciate the total team effort to keep the ball in play. Pitt lost a challenge at 19-9, but went on to close out the set 25-10 and win the match 3-0. For the set Pitt hit .500 with 13 kills, LIU hit .211 on five kills. With the exception of Set 1 it was a dominating performance. 

Lund finished the match with nine kills, nine digs, two service aces and hit .368. Chinaza Ndee had 11 kills, five blocks and hit .333, Chiamaka Nwokolo had six kills, five blocks and hit a scorching .750. Middle hitter Sabrina Starks had four kills, three blocks, two service aces and hit .333.

Valeria Vazquez Gomez had seven kills, four digs and hit .190, and Anastasia Russ had four kills, three blocks and hit 1.000. Not bad for her first playoff game! Both setters had 17 assists each, and totaled 15 digs. LIU’s best hitter had 10 kills and hit .147.

Going forward Pitt needs to have more Set 2 and Set 3-like performances and eliminate the poor play in Set 1. They have so many hitting options, and that is what may give them an advantage over Utah. Because so many of the Panthers play well, it makes it difficult for opponents to set their lineup to stop Lund or Ndee. They may stop one of them, but the rest of the lineup is strong enough to carry their share of the load. The game finished after midnight.

Tonight’s game vs. Utah is on at 10:30 pm again. I hope the players take a good nap beforehand so they are ready to go at the first serve. H2P!

(Editor’s Note: Here is the complete game on ESPN video)

Again – thanks Annie.

111 thoughts on “Pitt NCAA Win vs LIU Wrap-Up”

  3. Annie, great job! I hope someone shares these posts with the team so they know fans are following. Like Reed said, only on the POV.

    Liked by 1 person

  8. Sorry, but had to laugh at this (Re: Pine-Richland HC):

    “Kasperowicz released a statement Thursday morning, saying he “unequivocally” denies hazing or bullying took place in his eight-year tenure. If it did, he addressed the issue.”

    OK, that makes no sense.

    Almost as bad as this as a defense against getting sued:

    Trump lawyer being sued says “‘no reasonable person’ would believe her election lies”

    ^^ That is a true quote readers – no politics here just random ultra-stupidity.

    Liked by 3 people

    1. Just like no reasonable person believes that Kenny will have a heisman year, pitt will have a 1000 yard back, krull will become an all American and the whipple offense will put up 40 points per game. 🤠

      Liked by 1 person

  9. Great analysis Annie! You were a lot more diplomatic about Pitt’s first set. I would have just said Pitt stunk!

    I watched the first set and then went to bed. I should have just stayed and watched the last two sets. Pitt looked so bad that I did not get a good night’s sleep! First thing I did this morning was to checked to see if Pitt won the the match! I am going to watch the entire match from the beginning now that I am back from the important errands of the morning.

    Coach Fisher was not happy with his team in the first set yesterday. Apparently he was most upset with Jordon Lockwood as he had her warm the bench for all the second set. As Annie pointed out, Pitt burned a timeout early and used both way early in the match. If Coach was worried about the outcome of the match he would have also used a challenge on a kill error by Pitt to break LIU momentum a third time in the set. Several times the camera showed Pitt players indicating they thought LIU touched a Pitt kill that went long. Late in the set I remember Vasquez Gomez looking over to Fisher pleading for a challenge and then quickly turning away. By that point the players knew it was up to them to get their act together! In a great display of leadership Kayla then took over and ended the set.

    Just by the stats Pitt did well on serves with 7 aces to 5 errors. Akeo, Lund, Starks, and Faki appear to be the group Fisher wants to serve. More about Pitt and their serve problems in a future article.

    Well that it for my thoughts on the LIU match. Again kudos to Annie for her analysis and dedication for getting this up so quickly this morning. After giving it more thought, I am just going to watch the last two sets now. Life is too short and there is nothing useful from watching the first set again.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. PS. I love watching games that I know Pitt’s won. No matter how bad they play, I know the outcome. That’s why I record Pitt games. I can’t stand watching Pitt lose.

      Liked by 2 people

  13. I enjoyed the game last night and had trouble sleeping I was so excited. Thanks Annie/John ..You made it even better.

    I want to comment on the Pine Richland (former Pitt player) being fired by email for hazing and bullying. First “the best place to coach is an orphanage!” Parents are a coach’s biggest enemies.
    Re: hazing…. I will never forget my sophomore season at Baldwin. Summer camp was utter hell on its own but we always had an hour of free time after lunch and the coach’s disappeared. During that time us “silly sophomores” were bullied beyond words and hazing included massaging their backs, necks and butts while being screamed at by seniors. It stopped just short of homosexual acts! Never saw that coming and there was a code of silence. If you didn’t give in, you got your ass kicked on the field. Later in life as I talked to others who played football WPIAL, I found this commonplace! Coaches had plausible deniability! It probably happened at Pine Richland and when some board member’s little Johnny didn’t get to play, he tattled to mommy.

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    1. They interviewed several past players. I guess there was a pattern. Can’t do hazing these days. Too much liability. Typically it exists in subtle forms. These forms probably weren’t so subtle.

      Tex – a fan of appropriate hazing. I was ritual chair of my fraternity. And played sports.

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      1. Curious to know what year you graduated, Tex. And which fraternity you speak of.
        Have a feeling we were on campus at the same time — ‘89-‘93 for me. I was a Phi Sig and we did a lot of mixers back then. Hmmm

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        1. Same time. Same campus. But fraternity at a different school. The home office in oxford began cracking down on hazing during my time. It was the advent of lawsuits starting to hit fraternities. Early and mid 90’s. Hazing is something many places do from companies to sports to the military. It’s there for a purpose. But needs to be exercised prudently and responsibly. There are acceptable degrees. I know that sounds controversial to those who have never been hazed or practiced it.

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          1. Not controversial to me. But you hardly answered my direct question. Nevertheless you’re entitled to answer however you feel fit, admittedly. Np. SOP

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    2. Board members and administrators. You are at their mercy.

      Don’t worry

      Riddick will hire the guy. Senior director of football. With an opportunity to become assistant coach after two years.

      Seems something like heather would have done. Yellow blouse with a compliance dunce hat.

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  16. Thanks Annie, at the beach with grandkids so no late nights. Your summary is appreciated.

    I agree to send this to the team so they know they have fans.

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  17. Is this a PItt thing???

    I know I struggled with math, but how do you hit a negative percentage? Isn’t zero the lowest you can go, or is there negative points given to a ball the Helen Keller could have even hit?

    Not being disparaging to helen keller, I just don’t know how you can have a negative percentage! Asking for a friend too, who is equally bad in math. Correction, asking for a friend who probably did receive a negative percentage in his college algebra class.

    In basketball, I get how you can have a negative percentage because we have seen it at Pitt. The example would be that we had 10 players and six dropped thru the portal potty and zero were replaced, okay one. That could be deemed a negative percentage? Help explain.

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    1. Pitt sports generates a huge negative when you pay out over $7 million dollars to two poor coaches and get far less in return.

      Pitt invented the minus sign.

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      1. Spoken like the true champion of the huge negative club! But you know what Tex? You’re not all negative, you’re just belly aching over your boys not getting hired. Didn’t you want PITT to hire Kasper from PR before? Almost everyone of your top suggestions turn out to be big serious FLOPS!

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        1. No. Never wanted Kasper because he wasn’t ready. But now he is after being thrown under the bus by the school board. You do know Todd graham started out as a highly successful high school coach. I’d take Fraud over meatballs.

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    2. This is how you get a negative hitting percentage. Hitting percentage is calculated by taking the number of kills MINUS the number of hitting errors and the dividing that result by the number of hitting attempts. If you have 4 kills and 5 errors in ten attempt your hitting percentage is (4-5)/10 or a -0.100 . Need to know the formula before you can make a judgement on the results!

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  19. Utah is a good serving team. Look at serving aces. But they lack height and don’t get many blocks. Pitt actually is good at blocks. Call it proper technique. Pitt also has the better hitting percentage.

    Tex – your analytics for the day.

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  20. Great synopsis, Annie! It made me realize how shallow my viewing of the match was last night. I was especially clueless when attempts to spike on one side were met with two opponents attempting to block on the other. Ball hits the floor and I had to wait for the lady in the chair to signal before I knew the result. But it is fun to watch the emotion of the Lady Panthers throughout the match.

    Can’t wait to show a replay of some of the match to my 6 yr old granddaughter. Let her know there is more to growing up female than Disney Princess dresses. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

    Liked by 2 people

  22. I just hope the team doesn’t overlook anyone. From now on everyone is a higher seed, dso they need to come out firing on all cylinders. Eliminate the bad start and I predict we break through the 2nd round curse. Take advantage of Utah’s rust.

    Thank to all for the nice comments.

    Liked by 3 people

      1. In the past there was 1 day between games. Perhaps more condensed bc of covid protocols and everyone is in the same place- so why not.

        Liked by 1 person

  23. Let’s be honest here – there is hazing which is, for the most part, benign. Embarrassing, but harmless.

    Then there is abuse which is not. I made the that difference very clear with every sailor in every unit I had under my command. Hazing was done by naval tradition, not secretly but in the open – sometimes restricted by rank but not always and was enjoyed by all – abuse was brought up on charges with possible brig time and discharge.

    Believe me – ships at sea cannot afford to have disgruntled sailors on board. We had that on my first ship and the guy lit a fire in the laundry area. Why? Because he was abused by others in secret and was told if he squealed he’d go overboard. Serious stuff.

    Back in the day (mid-70″s) I pledged to the same frat my Dad, brother, and best friend belonged to. After going though all of Hell Week, every bit of it, I called the frat president up the night before the initiation ceremony and told him I wasn’t joining. He was shocked and thought I was joking. But what he didn’t want to acknowledge that the ‘hazing’ other pledges got was much worse than mine because I was a legacy pledge – and I didn’t want to be part of a group who would do that.

    I never looked back – but that said I know others who really loved and benefited by being a Brother in that frat.

    This day and age is a completely a different time and place then it was back then – some things much better and some worse (like college football if we are being honest) but things always change. Those who can’t accept that are the embittered outsiders who pine away for something that will never come around again.

    Liked by 1 person

  24. Thanks Annie – intentionally went to sleep after the horrid bad 1st set because I had an early business meeting this morning.

    Go Pitt!

    Any word on Efton Reid?

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    1. So your sayin we still got a chance?

      Kind of similar to our WVB tonight vs the Utes?

      Go Pitt!

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  26. Reid is negotiating with the bag men. Mama needs a new car and vacation to Hawaii.

    I see Pitt getting off to a fast start. Winning sets one and two. Losing three. Winning four.

    Pitt plays the winner of Minnesota who finished second in the big ten behind number one ranked Wisconsin and the acc’s Georgia tech whom pitt has beaten.

    Minnesota is ranked number three. But first pitt needs to get past a very good serving Utes team.

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  27. Minnesota defeats Georgia Tech in three sets. Notre Dame also lost in three sets. Louisville won 3-1. So far all seeded teams have won. Penn State gets North Carolina A&T after Rice had Covid issues. Rice would have given the Nitters a real workout! Up to Pitt now against Utah to keep at least 2 ACC teams alive!

    Liked by 1 person

  29. ESPN 3 at Watch ESPN. It is a streaming service. You need to log in with you cable, satellite, or streaming service provider. You can watch it on Roku with the ESPN app or on your computer. There are probably other devices that support it as well. The match will also be available for replay after it is over.

    Liked by 1 person

  31. I will have to watch from a different location and am not quite sure if I will even be able to see espn3 from there. However, if I get there in time and am able to view, I will post comments gain live time.

    I add my voice to those thanking Annie for this article and John in SC for his efforts.

    And whether it is EJ, a grad assistant, or someone else, thank you for your efforts on representing PITT well as well as keeping a pulse on some of the media/fan responses to the PITT teams.

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  33. Keys for game tonight are limiting the amount of damage #1Dani Drews of Utah does. We need to force someone other than Drews and #4 Koerber to score for the Utes. We need to limit our service errors. Dani Drews in an All American as well as the PAC-12 player of the year. Kenzi Koerber was first team PAC-12. The Utes are not as deep as Pitt when it comes to scoring so that is why it is important to limit Drews. The Utes are taller than Pitt and we will probably lose if the match goes more than four sets. We played yesterday and they did not. We need our legs more than they do. If the match is over in three sets, I would say Pitt wins. The longer the match goes, the worse Pitt’s chances get.

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  36. Good competitive match so far (but there has been one PITT service error already). PITT 14 Utah 9

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  38. Maybe I was wrong earlier if this is announcer is right: Anyhow, Utah is taking a timeout now with PITT at 23.

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  40. Good first set from Pitt. Lots of energy and movement. Playing a very fast game. Back line doing a great job digging some of those blistering shots from Utah.

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  41. First timeout when Pitt reached 15 was a media timeout. If no team calls a timeout prior to one team reaching 15, there is a media timeout then.

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  44. They don’t do the slide the way they did back when they had Van Buskirk, but there have been a couple of nice quick sets to Starks this game she has capitalized on.

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  46. Utah wins the challenge” Score PITT 8 Utah 7 Utah serving. PITT scores while I type. now have 9.

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  51. A couple errors by Pitt and Utah has tied the score 13-13. and now 14-14

    Cat Flood in

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  52. PITT opening up a three point lead before Utah takes their timeout. PITT 19 Utah 16. Vazquez Gomez serving.

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  56. Nwokolo with a set to Lund.Lund kills. Faki serving. PITT 23 Utah 17 when Utah takes their timeout.

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  63. Need to get this over in three sets. There have been long points in both sets. Pitt needs their legs. Need to keep serving cleanly!

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  66. Coach Narduzzi needs to hire Dan Fisher as his recruiting coordinator. Guy has recruited a ton of talent from all over the map. How does he get Vazquez Gomez to come to Pitt from Puerto Rico?

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    2. It’s the weather…the weather is such a disadvantage that some of the best athletes in the world come here from tropical climates to play.

      Could just be the coaching, but you won’t hear that on the pov. Pitt women looking strong! He uses his substitutions nicely.

      Liked by 1 person

    1. Guess they changed those to Chinaza on the last 2 kills.

      The Gophers won 3-0 as well over GT.

      A shout out to Kylee Levers with a team high 22 Assists & 9 digs

      Liked by 1 person

  77. All of the great POVers are missing this one. WHERE OH WHERE ARE YOU: TEX, Iek, GC, RICHMAN, LASTROW, MAJORMAJORS, REED, UPITT… but not MissingWlat!!! We had ‘em all the way!!! Pitt in 3 sets!!!

    Liked by 4 people

    1. Tex is floating around here….on a bourbon float, lol. saw he posted a tweet from official Pitt volleyball account.

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  81. awesome job by the ladies!!! Why isn’t anyone mentioning the bagladies at Pitt? Because you can win if you have good coaches without bags and with awful weather. Hopefully this gets people thinking.

    LSU made a late push for Eff…..hopefully capel called him and told him to think about it further.

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    1. And without great facilities. And without top 20 recruiting classes at least for volleyball. Soccer recruiting is top 15.

      Coaching matters

      Narduzzi and Capel stink and steal $7 million dollars while providing Pitt fans with a poor product, headaches and gastinal indigestion.

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  82. Pitt did what they needed to do- few serving errors, efficient hitting, great ball movement around the court and good distribution of scoring. Lund had 15 kills, Endee 17, Vasquez Gomez 8, Starks 5, and Lockwood 3. Had a “Block Party” with 10 blocks. Great job ladies ! Rest up and go get Minnesota on Sunday!

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Pitt’s hitting % in the 3rd set, was the best of the 3 sets. An incredible .450

      Kayla’s hitting % was also an incredible .467 while Chinaza’s was .412 to lead Pitt to the Sweet 16.

      Games are nice and fast as well…since there are not a gazillion tv commercials.

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  84. Except for BYU versus Wisconsin (on Saturday), the next round is on Sunday. PITT plays first against Minnesota at 1pm ET. PITT is one of the games that will be on ESPN3.

    Liked by 1 person

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