No. 1 Pitt volleyball sweeps new ACC foe Cal

No. 1 Pitt (16-1, ACC 6-1) suffered its first loss of the season against No. 12 SMU last Saturday, but the Panthers came out with a vengeance against Cal (10-9, ACC 2-5) on Friday night. 

“We wanted a good response, clearly, after feeling like we didn’t play our best in our last match,” head coach Dan Fisher said. “And I thought we got that. I thought our defense was great, and it started with our serving.”

Pitt crushed Cal, winning 25-12, 25-9, 25-10 — the Golden Bears never really had a chance against the vengeful Panthers. Fisher’s team held Cal to a -.048, the third time Pitt has held a conference opponent to a negative hitting percentage.

“I still am kind of a defensive-minded coach,” Fisher said. “And I just like the idea that we can, in every rotation, we can get the team stuck and go on a run.”

Sophomore opposite hitter, Olivia Babcock, had an especially rough last game against SMU. She hit her second-worst hitting percentage of the season against the Mustangs, 0.41. Today, she hit a season-high .577 against Cal. Babcock didn’t care for her season-high but was happy she could bring back the winning.

“I think I took it as more of like, important for the team to bounce back,” Babcock said. “So the entire time I was thinking about how I could contribute to the team.”

First set: 

Pitt got out to an early 9-3 lead led by their defense earning eight digs — four coming from sophomore outside hitter Blaire Bayless — and two blocks. 

Pitt eventually won the first set 25-12. It felt as if Cal had no shot in this set playing against a  No. 1 ranked team that was coming off a loss. Babcock finished the first set with 7 kills and hitting .462. Pitt’s defense was exceptional in the first set, holding Cal to a -.114 hitting percentage. 

Second set

It was more of the same domination in the second set. Cal fell behind 6-2 early on and after senior setter Rachel Fairbanks earned back-to-back aces and redshirt junior Bre Kelley earned her third kill of the match. The Golden Bears called a timeout trailing 13-7.

Fairbanks stayed on the service line for the next 10 Pitt points, tallying three more aces and forcing Cal to call its second timeout of the set. Pitt won the second set 25-9 led by Fairbanks’ service run where she nabbed five aces and also tallied 11 aces. Cal hit .048 in the second set, better than the first set, but not good by any means.

Third set

Pitt switched to a 6-2 rotation — six hitters and two setters, meaning there are always three hitters in the front row and one setter in the back row — from its typical 5-1 rotation — five hitters and one setter —  in the third set. But no matter what type of rotation Pitt came out in on Friday night, the same result would happen, a Pitt win.

Pitt emptied the bench in the third set, playing senior setter Nisa Buzletepe, middle blocker Dalia Virlan, defensive specialist Malorie Meyer and giving typical serving specialist graduate student Cat Flood time at outside hitter. The Pitt bench mixed with typical starters won the third set 25-10, earning Pitt its 15th sweep of the year. 

Next, Pitt hosts the No. 5 team in the country, Stanford, for a bout to potentially earn a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament and possibly an inside path to an ACC regular season Championship.

“I’m thinking about it, but I’m not obsessing about it,” Fisher said. “We for sure, want to be a top 16 [team], but ideally, we want to be in the situation we were in last year, to be a top four [team]. If we’re not, we’ll play the hand we’re given.

“We were in that situation a few years ago, and we were able to win at Wisconsin, but, we’d rather have the home-court advantage all the way through.”