Volleyball: Panthers struggle to find winning weekend

Six matches into its Big East season, the Pitt women’s volleyball team has yet to put together… Six matches into its Big East season, the Pitt women’s volleyball team has yet to put together a winning weekend.

The Panthers (13-7, 3-3 Big East) have split all three of their weekend series in conference play, including their most recent 1-1 effort against Notre Dame at the Fitzgerald Field House this past weekend.

In head coach Toby Rens’ opinion, some of the inconsistencies can be attributed to the team’s inexperience.

“We are a young team this year, only returning two starters,” Rens said. “The Big East is a competitive conference, and each weekend is a challenge to get wins. The fact that we have been able to bounce back after 1-1 weekends is a credit to the growth of our team.”

On Saturday afternoon, the Panthers fell to Notre Dame’s Fighting Irish (9-6, 2-3) in three straight sets with scores of 13-25, 19-25 and 20-25.

In the first set, the Irish jumped out to an 8-2 lead and the Panthers were not able to respond as they trailed the rest of the set.

“Our mentality when we were down against Notre Dame was not ideal,” sophomore middle blocker Brenea White said. “It was almost as if we tried to do too much to catch up and ended up out of our game plan.”

Rens agreed with White, noting that his team “came into the match with energy” but that they were also “tight and wound-up,” which led to mistakes.

The Panthers were strong defensively throughout the match, collecting 46 digs to the Irish’s 40. Junior libero Margy Acton led the way with a match-high 18 digs. Freshman defensive specialist Delaney Clesen contributed nine.

Offensively, however, the Panthers struggled to find a rhythm, as they committed 21 hitting errors to the Irish’s 12.

“Our own errors proved very costly,” Rens said. “Notre Dame showed extreme poise in the match, and they were able to minimize their mistakes, which is something we struggled to do.”

The Panthers managed to battle to a tie in the second set, but after the 8-8 mark, the Irish pushed ahead with an 11-3 run before closing out the game 25-19.

Only in the third set did the Panthers earn the advantage, managing at one point to achieve a 14-10 lead. However, the Irish were able to put together a series of runs and secure the overall match victory.

Senior middle blocker Kiesha Leggs led all players with 11 kills, but the production from the outside hitting position was lacking.

Sophomore Monica Wignot, Pitt’s starting outside hitter, sustained a head injury in pre-game warm-ups, and her play was limited. She recorded only four kills and committed seven errors. Fellow sophomore Mechael Guess led the way from the outside with six kills.

Despite a quick turnaround before their next match on Sunday against DePaul, the Panthers were able to look to the Notre Dame match for areas in need of improvement.

“The whole team talked after the match and we stressed the importance of improving parts of our game before we faced DePaul,” freshman setter Lindsey Zitzke said. “The biggest thing we focused on was our serve-receive and getting a good play on the first set.”

The team meeting appeared to be successful — the Panthers secured a 3-1 victory over the DePaul Blue Demons (4-15, 1-5).

“From the setter position, I could really see the difference in our serve-receive and consequently our offense as a whole against DePaul,” Zitzke said. “It is nice to be able to recognize a problem and then immediately work to fix it.”

The Panthers won the first two sets 25-22 and 25-12 before falling in the third 22-25. However, they used their match-high 18 kills in the fourth set to earn the 25-20 win and overall victory.

Three Panthers finished with double-digit kills against the Blue Demons. Leggs set the pace with 14, followed by Guess with 13. Wignot did not play in the match, but junior Jasmine Dittrich stepped in and contributed 11 kills.

“All of our players work hard in practice, and that really showed today when we needed Mechael and Jasmine to step in,” Rens said. “I am pleased with their ability to respond to unexpected circumstances with great offensive play.”

Once again, Acton was the leader on defense as she led all players with 22 digs, collecting more than 20 for the sixth time this season. Zitzke added to the effort with nine digs, in addition to her 42 assists and two service aces.

The Panthers will take a break from Big East play as they travel to Robert Morris to take on the Colonials Wednesday night.