Pitt volleyball has put together some dominant performances this season, and it was no different Friday night on the road.
The Panthers handed a good North Carolina State squad its first home loss of the season Friday night at the James T. Valvano Arena, a feat even Louisville couldn’t accomplish, in a quick sweep.
Pitt rarely trailed in a 25-15, 25-16, 25-13 match victory, outhitting (.309 to -0.038) North Carolina State thoroughly while racking up 39 kills, 46 digs and 14 blocks. It was a dominant night for the Panthers in North Carolina.
After North Carolina State took the first point of the match and hung around throughout the first half of the first set, Pitt pulled away after leading 9-8 in the early going.
Kills from Olivia Babcock (times three), Torrey Stafford and Emma Monks, sandwiched around NC State attack errors, pushed the Panthers’ lead to 18-10. And an eventual Monk kill put the Wolfpack away, clinching a 25-15 first set win.
NC State bounced back in the second set, taking an early 6-2 lead as Pitt racked up five early attack errors. But a Chiamaka Nwokolo, after a couple more from Babcock, leveled the set at 7, and the Panthers didn’t look back.
Pitt held the lead throughout the second set, stretching its lead to 24-16, before another Babcock kill — fittingly — clinched a second set win 25-16.
A back-and-forth start to the third set eventually gave way to a Pitt run, turning a 4-4 deadlock into a 10-4 lead. The errors continued to hurt the Wolfpack, as did kills from Babcock and Nwokolo.
The Wolfpack closed within two points in the middle of the third set with a Kristen McDaniel ace, but another error-prone stretch (three attack errors and a ball-handling error) pushed the lead to 19-10.
And Pitt closed out the third set — and the match — with kills from Nwokolo (twice) and Stafford to take a 25-13 win.
Nwokolo once again led the way for the Panthers, hitting .583 with eight kills and six blocks. Babcock put together an impressive performance of her own, notching a match-high 13 kills and a .345 hitting percentage, and Monks was a wall up front with a match-high seven blocks.
Stafford, who left the match against Virginia with an injury, returned to the court Friday night, racking up eight kills and four blocks.
Pitt will have a little time off, without another game this weekend, before heading back to the Petersen Events Center to host Virginia Tech in a conference matchup. It’s scheduled for 7 p.m. on Oct. 27 — the first of two home matches that weekend.
