A nice quick update on Pitt VB from John Demko (John in South Carolina). As you read about the team’s players here is this seasons roster for background info on them.

As a break from our dismal football season to-date, here is a review of this past weekend’s Pitt women’s volleyball matches at Duke and UNC.  For added measure I reviewed where we stand at this juncture in the season.

On Friday #8 Pitt played Duke and swept them in three sets; 25-20, 30-28, and 25-22.  In the second set Pitt had to overcome four straight set points in a row.  Pitt during the match went from their usual 6-2 offense to a 5-1 offense.  Pitt hit 0.258 versus Duke’s 0.190.

Logan Mosley started playing a defense role for the Panthers subbing into the back row when Pitt has a lead late in the set in the Duke match.  This continued in the UNC match.

The attack scoring for Pitt came mostly from Stafford (15) and Babcock (13).  The middles of Nwokolo and Monks contributed 10.  Stafford and Babcock in addition to attacking from the pins are attacking from the back row in the 5-1 offense.

Chiamaka Nwokolo appears to be back to her 2022 form.  Per Coach Fisher said Emma Monks is playing the best volleyball of her career.  This seems to happen a lot when players come to Pitt.  Apparently coaching does matter!

It is a good thing that both middles are playing well as it appears Bre Kelley may be out for a long time, perhaps the season, due to her injury.  Pitt also has Rachel Jepsen in reserve at middle in case she is needed.  Bre should be able to get a medical redshirt for this year if she does not return.

On Sunday Pitt took on UNC and swept them; 25-22, 25-17, and 25-19.  This was some small payback for the UNC beatdown of Pitt’s football the night before.

Stafford (16) and Babcock (11) again lead the Panthers in the attack.  Vazquez Gomez added 9 with both middles only contributing 7.  Pitt played a 5-1 exclusively in the match with Rachel Fairbanks.  The only time Pitt subbed out Rachel was when there was a rally where Rachel was involved in a collision with one of her teammates and ended up on the floor.

Pitt hit 0.312 versus 0.111 for UNC.  A large part of this was due to Pitt’s front-line defense as they had 12 blocks versus 6 for UNC.  In the second set UNC hit a negative 0.028!  There were numerous rallies when Pitt’s blocks continually frustrated UNC’s attackers.  Pitt was able to outleap the heavier hitters of UNC.  UNC’s best player, Mabrey Shaffmaster, seemed to tire as the match progressed with more unforced errors.

Against UNC and Duke Pitt allowed both teams to have long runs on them to get back into sets.  Hopefully Coach Fisher is working on ways to prevent that in the future.

This coming week Pitt is at the Fitz.  They play an improved Boston College team on Friday at 7 PM and Syracuse on Sunday at 1 PM. Here is this season’s full schedule…

Here are some of my thoughts at this point in the season on the team.

The two freshmen, Torrey Stafford and Olivia Babcock, are the real deal!  Hopefully they stay healthy and will be at Pitt for all four years of eligibility.  I believe they are the best freshmen combo in the nation!  They are also going to have to carry this Pitt team for the year and the foreseeable future.  Fisher is going to a 5-1 offense to have both on the floor as much as possible.

With Bre Kelley out for possibly the season, Pitt is going to be just OK in the middle with Emma Monks and Chiamaka Nwokolo.  They will not be able to score from there to the extent they did in the past.  Pitt also has Rachel Jepsen available.  As Pitt is going to lose both Monks and Nwokolo due to the end eligibility after this year, Fisher needs to give Jepsen as much playing time as he can without hurting the team’s chances.

Due to the 5-1, we will be seeing the middles slide to the pins to attack when Fairbanks is in the front row.  With our 6-2 offense this has not been a necessity.  This will be the first time we use the slide extensively since Layne Van Buskirk played.  We are going to use the back row attack this year much more than in the past.  Stafford is one of our 6 rotation players along with Vazquez Gomez.  Babcock is also being developed into that back row role.

While I generally do not prefer top spin jump serves in the women’s game, Olivia Babcock has a very impressive one.  She seems to be able to have good control of it most of the time.  It is a high risk/high reward serve though.  She has 27 errors versus 11 aces.  A hidden stat is how many points Pitt has made off the returned serves due to the other team being out-of-system.  Overall Pitt has 60 serve aces versus 93 errors so they are an aggressive serving team in general.

Our first pin hitter off the bench is another freshman, Blaire Bayless.  While not up to the level of the other two freshmen pins, she is no slouch!  She will see playing time whenever Pitt is playing a lesser ACC opponent.  Bayless is 6’2”.  When Pitt needs more height at the pins due to taller opposition Julianna Dalton is called upon at 6’5”.

In the back row, Emma Klika is doing very well.  Logan Mosley is going to be used more as the season progresses, especially when Pitt has a lead late in the set.  She is a good defender as well as a good server.

Logan seems to have overcome her issues with not trusting/communicating with her teammates on serve receive.  This was probably due to her time at Virginia Tech where she was the best player on a very bad team.

When I first heard Logan was transferring to Pitt, I was not that impressed.  I have since changed my mind.  At the present she is an upgrade over Dillyn Griffin.

Cat Flood and Dillyn Griffin are going to be used as serving specialist for the most part as well as subs in blowouts.  The two other setters, Haiti Tautua’a and Lexis Akeo, will be used in blowouts as well.  Against weaker opponents Pitt may revert to their standard 6-2 offense to give our two freshmen some rest as well as give the other setters some playing time.  This will also give Rachel Fairbanks a bit of a break.  Rachel apparently has been playing with a nagging injury.

Overall, I think Pitt has a chance to finish in the top 2 in the ACC.  If they can handle a more experienced Louisville team, they have a chance to win the ACC.  They cannot continue to have lapses as they did this weekend though and leave the other team have long runs against them.  Against Louisville and Georgia Tech that will result in lost matches.

As for the NCAA playoffs, they have a chance at the Elite Eight again this year.  This assumes we never get back a healthy Bre Kelley.  I will continue to give my thoughts on this as the ACC schedule continues.

The NCAA Volleyball committee did their first reveal of the season of the top ten seeds if the tournament was held today.  Pitt was not among the top ten.  Boo, Boo, Hiss!

A 5-5 Minnesota team was tenth and a Texas team with three losses was 9^th.  Pitt should have been in one of those two places.  Louisville was #5 so Pitt is going to have to beat them at least once to get into the top ten.  Pitt’s youth and lack of Bre Kelley was probably the reason Pitt did not make the top ten.

HTP!