Pitt volleyball fifth-year senior Kayla Lund’s phone began buzzing early Saturday morning.
Back in 2017, her freshman season ended in the second round of the NCAA Division I Volleyball Championship at the hands of in-state rival Penn State. Now in her extra, COVID season, the memory remained fresh.
But ... just in case, she got plenty of reminders
“This was a bit of a revenge match,” Lund said. “I had a lot of alumni and past teammates reach out to me this morning and just say, ‘Hey, you know what to do.’”
Sure enough, Lund got her revenge – and with it, a ticket to the NCAA Sweet 16 for the second consecutive year and the second time in program history.
The Panthers defeated Penn State in four sets, 3-1, at the Petersen Events Center. Pitt captured the victory, 25-22, 23-25, 25-22, 25-23.
Lund led the way with a team-high 21 kills, hitting .421, to go along with 10 digs. Fellow Panther Leket Member-Meneh tallied 19 kills and 14 digs. And Serena Gray, a Penn State transfer, capped the victory with the final block in the fourth set.
The Panthers (28-3), who hit .253 as a team, advance to the regional semifinal match Thursday at Fitzgerald Field House. They’ll host unranked Kansas, which earned a spot in the second weekend thanks to a four-set upset against Creighton, the No. 14 seed in the tournament.
“I’m just very grateful for these players and the grit they showed,” Pitt coach Dan Fisher said. “I think it’ll be a moment that they remember for the rest of their lives.”
The Panthers, the No. 3 seed in the tournament and in both major volleyball polls, took a hard-fought first set that featured 16 ties and six lead changes. But Penn State answered back in the second set. PSU's Kaitlyn Hord and Jonni Parker each tallied seven kills in the frame, while nine Pitt errors proved costly.
In total, Pitt committed 26 errors in the four-set match, many of them as the Panthers attempted to get a bit too creative to avoid Penn State blocks.
“The reality is, this wasn’t our best volleyball,” Fisher said. “We made a lot of errors, which isn’t abnormal in a big match … But we just stayed in it. We just didn’t quit.”
In the pivotal third set, with the match knotted at one set each, the Panthers trailed by as many as four points, 17-13. However, they clawed back to tie the score at 20. With Penn State leading, 22-20, Pitt closed on a 5-0 run. Pitt’s Valeria Vazquez Gomez pushed PSU to the brink with an ace, one of many timely serves in the match. Then, senior Chinaza Ndee closed out the frame in commanding fashion with a kill.
Finally, in the decisive fourth set, Pitt once again found itself in a deficit. The Panthers trailed, 18-14, when coach Fisher called a timeout. Pitt responded with a 7-3 run to tie the score at 21 but still trailed 23-21 in crunch time. However, the Panthers finished out the set and the match on a 4-0 run thanks in part to a Ndee kill, another Vasquez Gomez ace and finally Gray’s kill.
Gray said that playing against her former team presented two challenges.
“Whenever you’re playing against a group of people that you love so much, it’s very difficult to go in kind of 'no-mercy' style,” she said. “And then the physical challenge, Penn State’s roster is full of a bunch of superstars.”
Meanwhile, the Nittany Lions, who were ranked 15th in the latest American Volleyball Coaches Association poll, saw their season end with a 21-11 record. Parker tallied a team-high 12 kills and Erika Pitchard added 11.
“I’d like to take an opportunity to commend our players that I thought put in a good, competitive effort today,” Penn State coach Russell David Rose said. “As I indicated to them, there’s one team at the end of the year that wins a championship. That’s always the goal of the program. I thought that we had certainly opportunities throughout the year as well as in all four of the games today.”
Mike DeFabo: mdefabo@post-gazette.com and Twitter @MikeDeFabo.
First Published: December 5, 2021, 3:37 a.m.
Updated: December 5, 2021, 3:54 a.m.
