McGrane digs Panthers out of early hole

Pitt volleyball coach Chris Beerman wasn’t going to lie. When his team dropped the first-game… Pitt volleyball coach Chris Beerman wasn’t going to lie. When his team dropped the first-game to rival West Virginia and then fell behind quickly in the next game, he couldn’t help but remember that the Panthers have never lost to the Mountaineers.

“It always enters your mind,” he said after his team eventually rallied for a 3-1 win Friday night, the team’s sixth-straight and 35th in a row against the Mountaineers. Both streaks were on life support early on, however, after Pitt fell behind 21-16 in the pivotal second game before mounting a furious rally.

“That’s the key game right there,” he said of the second game. “You can’t fall behind 2-0.”

Behind solid defensive play from senior libero Megan McGrane, the Panthers overcame early offensive struggles to win the final three games and move to 6-1 in the Big East with the 28-30, 30-28, 30-22, 30-28 win.

“She always steps up when you need her to the most,” he said of McGrane’s performance. “I think she single-handedly wore them down.”

Her acrobatic digs not only set up a renewed Pitt attack in the second and third games, but also frustrated West Virginia’s hitters. Shots frequently hit the net, sailed out of bounds or were telegraphed enough for the Panthers to get to them at the net. Pitt registered 11 team blocks on the night to take control of the match.

“We talk about that a lot and that’s our goal. We want to stay tough for the entire 30 points of each match,” McGrane, who had 36 digs on the match, said, “We just want to keep the pressure on the whole time.”

“That’s the way we play,” Beerman said of his team’s aggressive play. “When we play physical and fast and high, we are a pretty tough team to beat.”

Aggressive play is how Pitt took control of game three. After the teams traded points back and forth, Pitt opened up its largest lead of the night when freshman setter Nicole Taurence set a high ball across the court to a rising Diana Andreyko, who crushed the ball to an open spot on the left side of the court to give the Panthers (13-7 overall, 6-1 Big East) a 10-6 lead.

West Virginia (13-8, 2-5) stormed back, however, to climb within a point at 12-11. Minutes later, Pitt regained a four-point advantage, 16-12, with a beautiful set play. McGrane dove to save a point and popped the ball up to Taurence, who set a high ball across the court. Ashley Creighton jumped and faked the kill, prompting a West Virginia defender to jump, leaving Andreyko wide open to come in and spike the ball to the court.

The Mountaineers weren’t going to go quietly, though. Three straight points closed the gap to a point before Andreyko fired a missile that threaded three WVU defenders to stop the run. Then, McGrane stopped a sure WVU point the next play when she dove to her right and laid out to full extension to keep the ball alive. The Mountaineers ultimately committed an attacking error and the Panthers were back on top by three.

Andreyko later fueled a five-point Pitt surge that put the Panthers up 23-18. Pitt then coasted to the 30-22 win that was finished off by a punishing kill from Andreyko.

A quick start to game four, largely because of strong play up front, put WVU ahead 5-1. Pitt’s first three attempts to score were all blocked by Mountaineers at the net. The Panthers shook off a fired up Mountaineer squad, however, and rode the energy of a boisterous crowd to an 8-1 run, capped off by a kill from Jessica Moses, to open up a 9-6 lead.

The margin remained the same a few plays later when Andreyko scored on a tricky play to put Pitt up 13-9. Instead of going for her powerful spike, she faked it and dinked the ball gently over the outstretched arms of two WVU defenders. Three Mountaineers dove at the ball from different directions with arms fully extended, but none got to it before it graced the ground.

Pitt was far from claiming this game, though. The Panthers committed three more attacking errors and a service error to help the Mountaineers put together a 12-5 run, prompting a timeout from Beerman to try to quell the storm.

“Just make plays,” Beerman said he told his players in that critical timeout. “All we had to do was make plays.”

And make plays they did. The Panthers scored twice to close within a point, but it wasn’t until the Mountaineers opened up a 23-20 lead that things really started to click for Pitt.

A service ace by senior Gini Ullery, who also had 20 kills on the night, knotted the game at 23 before an Andreyko kill bounced off WVU’s libero and sailed out of bounds to give Pitt the lead. West Virginia rallied one last time to tie the game at 25, but that was the last the Mountaineers had left in the tank as fatigue settled in when the match was on the line.

Andreyko pounded another kill to put Pitt back up a point. An error on the Mountaineers widened Pitt’s lead, which ultimately swelled to three on WVU’s next possession, where airborne Panthers blocked both of Kelly Mullins’ kill attempts and the ball eventually fell to the ground.

Fittingly, the final point of the match came on a block for the Panthers when Moses jumped and stuffed a hit by Stephanie Zolna to end the game and begin the countdown to Pitt’s highly anticipated trip to first-place Louisville (18-0, 6-0) Saturday afternoon.

“We didn’t talk about Louisville all week,” Beerman said. “I haven’t even thought of them, [but] I knew it was in the back of everyone’s minds. We played a good game [tonight], but we’ve got to just move on. On the other hand, I think we are going to go into Louisville and play a pretty good game next weekend. “

“In the Big East, you really do have to play it one match at a time,” McGrane said. “We had to face a tough West Virginia team [first]. You have to take it one match at a time. Now we have to prepare for the Louisville and Cincinnati trip.”