What’s next for Pitt volleyball after hectic offseason

Pitt volleyball will look entirely different in 2025. 

This isn’t to say that the team won’t have championship aspirations in 2025 — a goal that is always possible when a team returns the national player of the year and national coach of the year. 

But the path to Pitt’s fifth consecutive Final Four and first-ever national championship looks a lot more difficult in 2025 than it looked last season. 

The Panthers not only lost three talented starters to graduation in setter Rachel Fairbanks, libero Emmy Klika and outside hitter Valeria Vazquez Gomez, but they also lost rising junior outside hitter Torrey Stafford to the NCAA transfer portal. 

The four former Panthers collected a grand total of 11 All-ACC honors and seven All-American honors. 

From the 2024 roster, only three starters will return — National Player of the Year opposite hitter Olivia Babcock, Second-Team All-American honoree middle blocker Bre Kelley and ACC All-Freshman Team honoree middle blocker Ryla Jones. 

Of the five players who played all six rotations for the Panthers in 2024, Babcock is the only one returning. Then, the three players who passed the majority of the time in serve-receive for the Panthers are gone. 

Rising junior outside hitter Blaire Bayless is the only Pitt player to pass the ball in serve-receive over 100 times. The next closest to her is Kelley who passed the ball 17 times in 2024, which is a lot for a middle blocker who often hides in serve-receive. 

Babcock, who has passed the ball just three times so far in serve-receive in her entire Pitt career, may have to add the ability to pass effectively in serve-receive to her already deep repertoire. 

So how are the Panthers going to fix the gaping holes left on the roster? 

Outside hitters:

Long before Pitt knew that Stafford would transfer away from the Panthers with two years of eligibility, Fisher recruited outside hitter Samara Coleman to Pitt as a part of the class of 2025. 

It didn’t initially seem as if Coleman would have a major role in her first year, but it seems likely that she will have the same prominent role that Stafford had on the left pin during her first season.

Luckily for the Panthers, Coleman is enrolling in the 2025 spring semester. Coleman will have the entire spring semester to acclimate herself to college life, the team and the ever-so-important role she will have for Pitt during the 2025 season by playing against other colleges during the spring season. 

Alongside Coleman as the other outside hitter for the Panthers is likely Bayless, who Fisher used as a blocking sub for Fairbanks and a front-row sub for Vazquez Gomez from time to time in 2024. Bayless hit .158 in 2024 during the 89 sets she played in, and she also earned a total of 73 kills and 26 blocks in 2024.

Bayless was the No. 42 ranked recruit in the class of 2023 according to prepvollleyball.com, and with an increased workload in 2025, she can show why she was such a highly rated recruit.

Libero & Setter:

Head coach Dan Fisher can either stick with a player who has been at Pitt or place someone recruited from the transfer portal in both the libero and setter positions. 

The first player Fisher added from the transfer portal this offseason was from inside the conference, Florida State defensive specialist and libero Emery Dupes. Dupes will have only one year of eligibility while with the Panthers in 2025. 

Dupes will battle rising sophomore Mallorie Meyer and rising senior Dilyn Griffin for the starting libero jersey. Griffin will likely stay as a serving specialist for the Panthers in 2025, and either Meyer or Dupes will be named the starting libero. 

Fisher also could use the newly added two libero rule with Dupes and Meyer. Dupes was solid in serve receive for the Seminoles in 2024, and Meyer showed flashes of brilliance digging the ball during Pitt’s NCAA Tournament run in 2024.

The second player Fisher added from the transfer portal in the offseason was former Illinois setter Brooke Mosher. Mosher will have only one year of eligibility and can also provide depth to the Panthers at the outside hitter position as she started her collegiate career as an outside hitter.

Mosher will battle setters Haiti Tautua’a and Kianna Dinn, who both sustained season-ending injuries in 2024. Tautua’a suffered her season-ending injury before the season started, and Dinn only competed in one set in all of 2024. 

The Panthers could run a 6-2 rotation in 2025, making them have two starting setters, but with a player as great as Babcock on the roster, Pitt most likely won’t run a 6-2 because that takes her off the court. Pitt will likely run a 5-1 rotation, leaving them with only one setter who plays the entirety of the game, so the reigning National Player of the Year is on the court for the entire game.

Pitt volleyball’s roster is going to have an entirely different look to it, but the goal stays the same for Fisher’s squad — win a national championship, especially when your team returns the national player of the year for two more seasons.