Pitt volleyball sweeps Boston College, upping its winning streak to six

No. 8 Pitt Volleyball (12-2, 3-0) stayed hot on Friday night, sweeping Boston College (11-5, 0-3) to up their winning streak to six games.

Pitt started out the game strong by scoring its first six points of the set on kills, helping the Panthers get out to a strong 6-2 start against Boston College. 

The first-years once again played as main contributors to getting kills for the Panthers. Both first-year right-side hitter Babcock and first-year outside hitter Torrey Stafford had four early kills, which brought the Panthers’ lead up to 13-6.

Babcock said she doesn’t focus on her success during the game, opting to instead trust her training and support her teammates.

“To be honest, I don’t even really think about it,” Babcock said. “I’m just trying to play volleyball and have fun. With all the hard work we put in it just happens to work out. I don’t even think of it as dominating, I think about it as doing what the team needs.” 

Junior setter Rachel Fairbanks heavily contributed to the win as well, assisting ten of the 11 Panther kills. She is especially proud to have all of these great first-years to set the ball to, as people and as players. 

“The freshmen as people are great people,” Fairbanks said. “They just bring different personalities to the team, Then as players, they are legit, so it’s very nice having so many options and knowing whichever option I set will do great.”

The Panthers’ early domination of the Eagles caused Boston College to call the first timeout of the game. Off the timeout, the Panthers beat the Eagles in different ways. Through blocking, Eagles errors and service aces which all helped stretch the lead out to nine, causing another Boston College time-out with the Panthers leading 19-10.

Immediately off the timeout, the Panthers didn’t falter, scoring the first four points off of the Stafford serve, which brought their lead to 23-10. The one-stop by Boston College didn’t halt the Panthers’ domination of the set. The Panthers finished set one with a ferocious kill by senior outside hitter Vasquez Gomez giving the Panthers a 25-12 set one victory.

Set two had more of the same domination from the Panthers and the Eagles did not help themselves out early in the set by having three errors and one overpass that led to yet another ferocious Vasquez Gomez kill. This all caused an early Boston College timeout and a Panthers lead of 5-0.

Off the early time out from the Eagles, they showed some of their best play of the day. The Eagles went on an 8-3 run, ultimately tying the game 8-8 because of their great presence at the net, causing Pitt attacking errors and two Eagles blocks. 

But this Boston College run immediately flipped when the Panthers went on an 8-3 run of their own and gained the lead 16-11.

Pitt head coach Dan Fisher showed a lot of confidence in his team by opting to not take a timeout after the Eagles went on an 8-3 run, opting to instead trust his team to ride it out.

“I thought we went through a streak where we didn’t just pass or set as well as we could have,” Fisher said. “But we had been playing so well offensively I thought we could work our way through it. ”

After both teams had runs of their own, the Eagles and Panthers went back and forth in a 3-3 run. Boston College head coach Jason Kennedy knew the back and forth wouldn’t work out for the Eagles for long, so immediately after Stafford got her 8th kill of the game, he called a timeout with the score of 20-14.

After Boston College’s timeout, the Panthers and Eagles continued their back and forth. Even with Kennedy giving his best effort to stop the back and forth, the Panthers ultimately ended the second set in a 25-19 victory.

The Panthers started the third set how they had in the first two sets, in dominating fashion. The Panthers yet again got out to an early 5-0 lead, but this time Kennedy didn’t call a timeout.

The refusal to call another early timeout didn’t help the Eagles out much with the Panthers extending the lead to seven and the Eagles still having to use an early timeout, but this time with the score of 8-1.

Off of Boston College’s early third-set timeout, The Panthers still kept the momentum. This time the Panthers dominated thanks to taking advantage of Boston College errors and making plays of their own. This eventually extended the Panthers lead to 10 early in the set. 

The Panthers didn’t even give the Eagles any glimmer of hope this set. Leading the match two sets to none and with a score of 18-6 in set three, the Panthers took out many of their starters for some fresh faces who haven’t seen the floor much in ACC play. 

With fresh faces on the floor, the Panthers still came out as victors in the third set, giving the Panthers a 25-15 victory and sweeping the Eagles in three sets.

In the Panthers’ dominating three-set performance, Fisher showed pride in how his team’s offense played. 

“On the whole of the night, I’m very pleased with our offense,” Fisher said.

The Panthers stay at home for their second ACC home game of the year to face Syracuse (2-11, 0-3) at 1:00 p.m. in the Fitzgerald Field House.