Pitt Volleyball Sweeps UMBC in Opening Round of NCAA Tournament
PITTSBURGH — Top-seeded Pitt opened up the 2025 NCAA Volleyball Tournament with a clean sweep of UMBC behind a fairly balanced attacking night and overall relentless defensive effort from the team.
Olivia Babcock paced the team with 13 kills, as she was the only Panthers player to finish the match with double-digit kills. Babcock also managed to break another school record in the match as he became the single-season kill record holder.
“I think it says a lot about how my team trusts me to take those big rips,” Babcock said after the match. “It just gives me the opportunity to score and get as many kills as I do so all the credit to my team.”
Outside of Babcock, the Panthers had four other players finish with at least five kills Blaire Bayless tallied nine kills and seven digs in the opening-round win while Abbey Emch added a career-high eight kills.
The Panthers not were able to balance out the attacking efforts, they were able to set the school’s tournament record with a .518 hitting percentage.
“Our passing was really good today,” setter Brooke Mosher said. “That made it really easy for me to spread the ball around and get the middles involved.”
While the Panthers used a balanced offensive attack in which most of the team played exceptionally well, the team’s defense shut down the Retrievers as they racked up 11 blocks and held them to a .129 hitting percentage.
Even with those numbers, Pitt’s head coach Dan Fisher was not satisfied as he is looking to get over the hump this season after four-straight Final Four runs.
“I thought our blocking against the middles was pretty good, the left side was pretty good,” Pitt head coach Dan Fisher said. “As a whole, our blocking against their zone was pretty good but there were a few streaks where I think we could have done a better job.”
UMBC opened up the matches scoring in a light tip over Pitt’s blockers but the Panthers immediately answered with a 10-3 run to take a commanding lead over the Retrievers.
Following the Panthers’ scoring run, the Retrievers managed to match the Panthers kill-for-kill over the next couple of rallies which pushed the score to 13-8.
After the Panthers allowed the Retrievers to stick around for a while, the top-seeded hosts showed their greatness and closed the first set out on a 12-2 run that was fueled by a career-performance by Emch.
She finished the first set with five of her eight total kills.
“I feel like there is just so much trust when she is on the court,” Babcock said of Emch. “I know that if we set her the ball, it is very likely to be a kill and if it is not, it’s gonna give the other team a hard time. … She’s been very consistent and I knew that she’d kill it coming into the tournament.”
The Retrievers again managed to claim an early lead in set two as they led 2-1 before the Panthers responded in dominating fashion with a 13-5 run, mostly because of the attacking success of Bre Kelley and Bayless.
After the Panthers went on a 4-0 run later in the set that made the score 19-10, they were able to trade kills with the Retrievers through the rest of the set before going up 2-0 in the match.
Babcock recorded six of her 13 kills in the second set of the match.
The Panthers started the third set up 2-0 on another kill by Bayless and a service ace from Brooke Mosher, but the Retrievers matched with back-to-back kills to even the set up at 2-2.
The Panthers again jumped ahead by but the Retrievers would not go away as the set was tied at 2-2, 4-4 and 5-5 before Pitt started to finally pull away.
After the initial surge from UMBC, it seemed like their energy started to fade after Pitt went up 8-7 as the Panthers went on a quick 6-0 run that included two attacking errors from the Retrievers.
The scoring run allowed the Panthers to double up the Retrievers at 14-7. After a few back-and-forth rallies advanced the score to 18-11, the Panthers closed the set and the match out on a 7-2 run.
“I think on the whole of the night, we played good defense but our offense was pretty tough to stop,” Fisher said. “We had zero unforced errors. We got everybody involved. … Happy to be going to round two.”
Pitt returns to the floor tomorrow night as they face Michigan at 7 p.m. in the second round of the tournament. The Wolverines swept No. 8 Xavier in the early game on Friday.
