Upper campus rundown: Volleyball keeps rolling
The Pitt football team is at the midway point of its season and the rest of Pitt's fall sports programs are getting through their seasons as well. Here is a recap of how things are going for the rest of the Pitt athletic programs.
Volleyball
The Pitt volleyball program just continues to buzz right along. The Panthers went 2-0 last week with both wins coming in retro blue and yellow uniforms at home.
On Friday night, Pitt took down Syracuse 3-1 in front of 1,081 fans at Fitzgerald Field House. Pitt roared out to a big lead with a 25-9 victory in the first set. The Panthers claimed the second set 25-23 and looked poise for a sweep but the Orange forced a fourth set with a 25-23 win. Pitt closed out the match with an easy 25-11 win in the fourth. Kayla Lund continued her brilliant sophomore season with 21 kills for the Panthers.
On Sunday, Pitt claimed a 3-0 victory over Boston College. The Eagles made the Panthers work for the win as they took Pitt down to the wire in all three sets. Pitt won 25-22, 25-22, 25-21 to improve to 17-0 on the year and 6-0 in the ACC. Lund led with 14 kills, and she is second in the league to this point with 249 on the year.
Pitt hosts North Dakota State tonight at home in a late-season non-conference game. Dan FIsher’s squad will then hit Tobacco Road this weekend with trips to North Carolina and N.C. State on the horizon.
Pitt is now up to No. 4 in RPI rankings and is No. 6 in the AVCA top 25 rankings. Pitt and No. 1 BYU are the lone undefeated teams remaining in the top 25.
Men’s Soccer
Pitt scored a pair of wins last week to improve to 6-5 on the season, marking the first time all season that Pitt is above .500. On Tuesday, Pitt took down Columbia 1-0 as sophomore Jose Luis Sent Arbona netted the lone goal in the match in the 77th minute and Pitt freshman goalkeeper Johan Penaranda recorded two saves in the shutout win.
On Friday night, Pitt took down Clemson 2-1 in overtime to improve to 2-3 in the ACC. The team wore throwback kits and played in front of 653 fans at Ambrose Urbanic Field on a busy day in Oakland that also featured a volleyball match, Courtside at the Cathedral and fireworks on campus.
Edward Kizza found the back of the net at the 9:55 mark to give Pitt an early advantage. Clemson tied it in the 37th minute and the teams played to a tie through regulation. Kizza netted his second goal of the match and eighth of the season in the 101st minute to give Pitt the victory.
Pitt hosted Cleveland State last night, and lost to the Vikings 4-3 in a back-and-forth game. Kizza netted a hat-trick for Pitt, his second three-goal game of the season. His 11 goals to this point are the tenth-most in program history for a single season. He has five games to add to that total, starting on Friday with a trip to Virginia Tech in a big ACC Coastal showdown.
Women’s Soccer
The Pitt women’s soccer team finished last week with two tough home losses, and the Panthers have now lost six straight games and have now seen their record slip to 4-8-1 on the year.
On Thursday Pitt lost a heartbreaker to Miami. The Panthers grabbed a two-goal lead in the first half, but could not hang on and lost to the Hurricanes 3-2. Ashley Moreira and Aideen O’Donoghue scored the two goals for Pitt.
On Sunday, the Panthers lost 2-0 to Clemson. It was the team’s fifth shutout loss during the current six-game losing streak. Things won’t get any easier this week with the lone game on the schedule being a road trip to No. 8 Virginia in Charlottesville.