Pitt volleyball consistently overpowering ranked opponents

Pitt head coach Dan Fisher called an unbelievably early timeout in the third set against SMU. Pitt trailed 4-2 and the opposing team just earned two straight aces against the Panthers. Graduate student outside hitter Maya Tabron tabbed the Mustangs’ fifth and sixth aces of the game — the most aces Fisher’s team has allowed in one match all season long. 

It looked like Pitt may have gotten ahead of itself after it cruised by the No. 15-ranked team in the first two sets, winning 25-17 and 25-18. 

“We let a ball drop, and we moved slow for one ball,” Fisher said of the two consecutive aces his team suffered. “I feel like we kind of iced ourselves a little bit in the break. We didn’t come out with the sense of urgency I wanted. And we certainly made the change.” 

If there were an award for best timeout of the week, this unconventional 4-2 timeout would have most likely won it. Pitt finished the set on a 23-5 run and eventually beat a top-15 team 25-9 in a match-clinching set.

This isn’t the first time Pitt has gut-punched a top-15 team in the match-clinching set. Less than two weeks ago in Atlanta, then-ranked No. 13 Georgia Tech got stung so badly by Pitt’s punch that it only managed to eke out eight points in the third set.

Fisher’s timeout successfully iced Tabron into a serving error, and then, as she did in the second set, sophomore opposite hitter Olivia Babcock took over.

Babcock went on to ace SMU four out of her next six serves. It was utter dominance, and the packed Fitzgerald Field House crowd sat there in awe watching as 2023’s AVCA National Freshman of the Year dominated the helpless 15th-best team in the nation. 

“It’s amazing, but it’s funny,” senior setter Rachel Fairbanks said of Babcock’s dominance from the service line in the third set. “The crowd just thinks it’s like, this most amazing thing ever. And it’s so funny that Liv comes in [to the huddle] and she’s like, ‘Oh, that wasn’t a good one.’ ‘You just got three aces in a row.’ She’s like, ‘Oh, I need to be better.’”

This standard Babcock sets for herself is consistent throughout the team. Fisher notices that his team has a higher expectation for themselves, and it’s even apparent during practices. 

“It’s the best group I’ve ever had in terms of … just not settling for a bad practice, or just fighting to turn things around,” Fisher said. 

But Babcock embodied this quote from Fisher the most against SMU. 

Despite winning the first set handily, the sophomore opposite hitter played an objectively bad set, especially to her standards. Babcock only had two kills and nabbed a low .125 hitting percentage. It was her sophomore running mate, outside hitter Torrey Stafford, who carried Pitt in the set. 

Stafford tallied six kills and held a .455 hitting percentage in the first set — a high hitting percentage that the Torrance, California, native is awfully familiar with. The sophomore outside hitter would finish the game with 13 kills to her name and a .423 hitting percentage — Stafford’s fourth time in five tries hitting over .400 in ACC play.

After Babcock’s .125 hitting percentage in the first set, Babcock fixed her performance up incredibly quickly in the second set. She earned a kill on each of her first six swings of the set. It didn’t just end there — Babcock finished the set boasting 12 kills and a .688 hitting percentage. 

But, unlike most Pitt fans, Babcock doesn’t even acknowledge the dominance she displays on the court.

“I actually don’t notice it at all,” Babcock said. “Because I’m just trying to do my job for the team.”

Then, when Babcock was told in the press conference after the game that she had a season-high hitting percentage — .571 — she didn’t gloat about it. The credit to her dominance was passed along to the person sitting two seats away from her on the podium, Fairbanks.

This credit was given with good reason, as the senior setter finished her game with 37 assists — 14 of those to Babcock — and led Pitt, the NCAA leader in team hitting percentage, to its 12th game hitting over .300. 

Babcock ultimately finished her night with 18 kills, just two errors and four aces. She was unstoppable, and so was Pitt.

Next up, Pitt plays the team it embarrassed, SMU, in Dallas, where the Mustangs swept No. 2 Nebraska. 

It’s weird ACC scheduling that Fisher could easily have a gripe about, but it delights him. It reminds Fisher of his time as the associate head coach for men’s volleyball-powerhouse Hawaii. 

“I like it. It takes me back to when I coached men’s volleyball in the MPSF, a lot of our trips would be two-in-a-row when I was an assistant at Hawaii,” Fisher said. “And I always liked the challenge of, what adjustments are they going to make going into the next game? … It’s a mini game of chess that I think is good.”

Going to SMU for the second game of a back-to-back also brings on the challenge of playing in front of a raucous crowd that is resentful of the fact that Pitt destroyed them just three days prior. 

“It’s definitely going to be a tough environment since, especially since their crowd’s probably going to be going at us because they’re probably angry,” Babcock said. “And I think it’s definitely going to be a tougher game than it was today.”

Saturday’s top-15 rematch is the first time Pitt will play back to back ACC games since the 2020 fall season when the Panthers matched up with four different conference opponents in consecutive games — Syracuse, Boston College, Notre Dame and Louisville. Only two players on Pitt’s current roster experienced the weird pandemic-stricken season with Pitt volleyball — sixth year outside hitter Valeria Vazquez Gomez and graduate student serving specialist Cat Flood.

The rematch on Saturday is in Moody Coliseum, and Pitt fans can watch on ACCNX at 2 p.m.