Pitt volleyball earned multiple prestigious ACC honors for its performance in the 2024 regular season.
Pitt already earned an outright ACC Championship in conference play by going 19-1. Every Pitt starter earned an All-ACC recognition, while sophomore opposite hitter Olivia Babcock won ACC Player of the Year and head coach Dan Fisher won ACC Coach of the Year.
Babcock’s win comes a year after she won ACC Freshman of the Year. This year, Babcock led the ACC in three categories— kills per set, points per set and service aces per set.
The Los Angeles, California native was also top ten in the ACC for hitting percentage and blocks per set. The most eye-popping of all the statistics Babcock racked up was the service aces. Babcock’s 66 service aces is a program record for the rally-scoring era and one away from tying the program’s all-time record of aces in a single season.
Babcock’s name was, of course, also mentioned on the First-Team All-ACC team. Sophomore outside hitter Torrey Stafford, senior setter Rachel Fairbanks and redshirt junior middle blocker Bre Kelley were all named to the All-ACC First Team.
Stafford, who was named to the All-ACC First Team in 2023, had an even more impressive sophomore campaign. She ranked top-six in the ACC in three categories — hitting percentage, kills per set and points per set.
The hitting percentage of Stafford’s was the most remarkable, a .377 mark for a pin hitter. Stafford’s hitting percentage was first among all pin hitters in the ACC by a wide margin, and her teammate, Babcock, was the closest among all pin hitters with a .328 clip.
Fairbanks lost out on the ACC Setter of the Year award to Stanford’s senior setter Kami Miner, but still earned the All-ACC nod. The Tustin, California native led Pitt to the highest hitting percentage in the ACC, .341. She had the second-most assists per set in the ACC with 10.49, only behind Miner who had 11.02 per set. Fairbanks also ranked No. 8 in the ACC in aces per set with .37 per set.
Kelley, who suffered a season-ending ankle injury in 2023, earned the first All-ACC mention of her career. The Florida transfer was on the All-SEC Freshman team in 2021, but this is the first time she made an All-Conference First Team selection.
The Rockwall, Texas native led the ACC in hitting percentage by a wide margin. Kelley hit .514 and the next closest was fellow All-ACC First Team member, Florida State senior middle blocker Khori Louis, who hit .427.
Senior libero Emmy Klika and sixth-year outside hitter Valeria Vazquez Gomez were both also on All-ACC teams as well. The two were selected to the All-ACC second team.
Klika ranks No. 1 in the ACC in serve-receive passing. The senior libero passed at a 2.37 rate out of the three-point scale Volleymetrics uses to calculate passing in serve receive. Klika also had 275 digs this season, good for 2.78 digs per set.
Vazquez Gomez is ninth in the ACC in aces per set with .36 and has been a steady force for the Panthers in the front row. She has a hitting percentage of .251, 197 kills and 186 digs. The 197 digs and 186 digs have helped Vazquez Gomez reach the exclusive group of players who have earned 1,000 kills and 1,000 digs while playing for Pitt.
First-year middle blocker Ryla Jones earned herself a spot on the All-ACC Freshman team. Jones, who had big shoes to fill as a first-year, has made her mark on the team. She boasts a .398 hitting percentage, 1.11 blocks per set and 111 kills.
Head coach Dan Fisher led the team to a stellar 29-1 record and took home ACC Coach of the Year. This is the third time Fisher has won ACC Coach of the Year as he took home the award in both 2017 and 2018.
The award-winning Pitt volleyball team starts its postseason journey this Friday at 7 p.m. when they face off against Morehead State out of the OVC in the Petersen Events Center.