A banner weekend for Pitt athletics
Heather Lyke has been on a mission since she started in her role as the athletic director at Pitt.
She wanted the entire athletic department to show progress and have success at the ACC and national levels. The actions have been there on her end, as she has brought in a number of new head coaches during her short tenure in Pittsburgh to this point. The talk on her end has been there, too, as she has introduced a “Victory Heights” initiative, a plan to improve the athletic facilities throughout campus.
The plan is in place, but the success has yet to follow in many respects. So November 17th and 18th were shaping up to be a big couple of days for Pitt athletics. The Pitt volleyball team was looking to clinch its second consecutive ACC title, Pitt football had a chance to claim its first ACC Coastal Division title and both basketball programs along with wrestling all looked to keep up with their fast starts to the current season.
The result: a clean sweep, as Pitt's athletics programs made it happen over the weekend by going 5-for-5.
It started with Pitt volleyball, which has been Pitt’s most successful athletic program in recent years. Dan Fisher has had his team playing incredibly throughout the season, and the Panthers are currently ranked 10th in the AVCA Poll. Pitt needed a win on Friday against Florida State to at least assure itself a share of the ACC title, and the mission was accomplished as the Panthers took down the Seminoles in four sets, including 25-19 in the fourth.
The program needed another victory on Sunday to win the league outright, and the Panthers got it, although it wasn’t easy. Miami forced Pitt to a fifth set - only the second time that has happened all season - but the Panthers prevailed and improved to 28-1 on the year.
Pitt has one game remaining before the postseason and things are pointing towards being a host once the NCAA Tournament begins, which would be a big step for the program after having to travel for the first round in its most recent tournament appearances.
Of course, the Pitt football team took most of the attention this weekend and claimed its berth in the ACC Championship with a 34-13 win over Wake Forest. Pat Narduzzi’s club improved to 7-4 on the year and broke into the AP poll at No. 24 in the country following Saturday's win.
Even with the division title in hand, the Panthers have plenty to play for down the stretch with bowl positioning and an outright ACC title on the line.
The winter sports are just getting going, but each program has a new coach hoping to wake up some once-proud programs. It started with the Pitt’s women’s basketball program claiming a 65-48 win over Cincinnati Friday night. New head coach Lance White is off to a modest 2-2 start in his Pitt tenure, but any win seems important for a program that has only won 10 ACC games over the past three seasons.
The men's basketball team earned a hard-fought 71-66 win over North Alabama on Saturday afternoon, and now the Panthers are out to a 5-0 start for the first time since 2013-14 season. While the competition has been relatively weak, the program only won eight games all of last year and it has to start somewhere for Capel's group that starts three freshmen, so a five-game winning streak is nothing to scoff at for this program after what it went through last season.
Like both basketball programs, Pitt wrestling had fallen on hard times in recent years and Keith Gavin is the coach tasked with bringing the program back to life. With most people buzzing about the football victory on Saturday afternoon, the Pitt wrestlers managed to pull off an upset over No. 15 Northern Iowa in dramatic fashion to improve to 2-0 on the year. Pitt was trailing heading into the heavyweight match, but junior Demetrius Thomas earned a 9-3 decision to give Pitt the 21-19 upset win.
The Pitt athletic programs have yet to really be a factor in the ACC since joining the conference in 2013, but claiming a conference title in volleyball, a division title in football and earning an upset over a top-15 team in wrestling in addition to wins by both basketball teams seems like a significant weekend for the entire athletic department.
As a whole, Pitt still has a lot of hills to climb athletically, and that is something Lyke will not shy away from, but this past weekend felt like a significant step towards Pitt showing itself as a viable competitor in the future.