University of Pittsburgh Athletics
Pitt
Boston College
No. 2 Pitt Heads To The Northeast To Continue ACC Play
10/1/2026 10:42:00 AM | Volleyball
PITTSBURGH - No. 2 Pitt will go on the road to face Boston College Friday night and Syracuse Sunday afternoon. The Panthers are off to a 12-0 start to the season and has now swept six straight contests heading into the weekend.
The Panthers have beaten six ranked teams this year and have dropped only four sets on the season. In total, Pitt has won 21 consecutive sets since losing the opening set at Utah on Sept. 6.
Pitt is one of five ACC teams with a 2-0 conference record and the only league team with fewer than two losses overall. Boston College comes into the weekend with a 1-1 ACC record, while Syracuse is 0-2.
HARD TO BEAT
• Since the start of the 2021 season, nobody in NCAA Division I women's volleyball has won more than Pitt.
• Pitt has the best record in NCAA Division I women's volleyball since the start of the 2021 season with a mark of 165-20 (.892). That includes a record of 87-9 (.906) in ACC matches.
• In non-conference play, Pitt has gone undefeated three times in the last six years, doing so in 2021 (11-0) and 2024 (10-0) prior to another unbeaten (10-0) non-conference slate this year.
• Pitt has not lost a road match to an unranked opponent since a five-set defeat at Florida State on Nov. 3, 2023.
BRING 'EM BACK
• On Sept. 26, Olivia Babcock and Blaire Bayless announced that they will return to Pitt for a fifth season in 2027, due to new NCAA rules enacted over the summer.
• Babcock and Bayless made the announcement during a timeout at Pitt football's Homecoming victory over Bucknell in Acrisure Stadium.
• The duo has led Pitt to three straight trips to the Final Four with an overall record of 104-12. Babcock and Bayless have lost just one home match in four seasons at Pitt.
FISHING FOR WINS
• Pitt Head Coach Dan Fisher has spent more than a decade reeling in wins. He is the winningest active coach, by winning percentage, in NCAA Division I with a minimum of five years experience. His .851 win percentage ranks just ahead of Nebraska's Dani Busboom Kelly (.845).
• Fisher, in fact, is fourth among all coaches in NCAA Division I history (minimum five years) in winning percentage.
STREAKING FROM THE START
• Pitt's 12-0 start to the season ties the team for the fifth-longest win streak to open a season in program history. The 1983 team also opened the year 12-0 on the way to a 31-11 record.
• In 2018, Pitt established the longest win streak to start a season in program history, going 23-0. The Panthers went 30-2 that year, including a 17-1 mark in the ACC, but lost a five-set match to No. 18 Michigan in NCAA Tournament second round.
THREE ARENAS. 58 STRAIGHT WINS.
• Apparently, home is where the wins are. Pitt currently owns the nation's longest home win streak, having posted 58 consecutive wins dating back to Sept. 14, 2023. That streak is tied for the seventh longest in NCAA Division I history.
• In fact, Pitt has won 60 straight inside the Pittsburgh city limits, having won two "neutral site" matches at PPG Paints Arena in 2025.
• In ACC competition, Pitt has won 40 straight home matches, dating back to a four-set loss to then-No. 1 Louisville inside Fitzgerald Field House.
• Among that 58-match win streak is 36 matches inside Fitzgerald Field House, 17 inside the Petersen Events Center and a streak of five inside the brand new Victory Heights Arena.
• Pitt is yet to drop a set inside Victory Heights Arena after sweeping three matches Sept. 11-13 in the Panther Challenge. Pitt then swept Cal and No. 12 Stanford this past weekend.
• Petersen Events Center has been good to Pitt and the Panthers have won a total of 23 straight matches in the facility stretching back to 2019.
• And it's not like Pitt is playing cupcakes inside Petersen Events Center. All 23 of those matches were either NCAA Tournament contests (14 of the matches) or against ranked opponents during the regular season (the other nine). Including all of those matches, Pitt has beaten 15 ranked teams during the 23-match win streak and three that were ranked inside the top four in the country.
• In fact, Pitt has lost just 14 sets during that 23-match win streak and has been pushed to five sets just four times (2022 vs. #13 Georgia Tech, 2023 vs. #4 Louisville, 2024 vs. #4 Louisville, 2024 vs. #14 Oregon).
• Pitt has not lost in the Petersen Events Center since Dec. 7, 2019 when it fell to Cincinnati in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
• In more win streak trends, Pitt's current 12-match winning streak is tied for second nationally (behind only Nebraska's 13-0 start to the 2026 season) and the team's four-match road win streak is tied for the 10th longest in the NCAA heading into the weekend.
TWO DOWN
• Olivia Babcock has already done something only four players in AVCA history have done: win National Player of the Year honors twice. Now she's chasing something nobody has done before.
• Olivia Babcock enters her senior campaign as the reigning two-time AVCA National Player of the Year.
• She is now the fifth player in the award's history to receive the award back-to-back and the first since Kathryn Plummer (2017 & 2018).
• Others who have won the award twice are Logan Tom (2001 & 2002), Misty May (1997 & 1998), Tara Cross (1988 & 1989) and Tonya Sanders-Williams (1987 & 1989). No individual has ever won the award three times in their career.
ON THE ATTACK
• Pitt leads the country with a .328 attack percentage.
• The Panthers have hit at least .300 for six straight matches, reaching at least .400 in three of those matches.
• In total, Pitt has hit at least .300 in 8-of-12 matches.
FIVE ALIVE
• The Panthers advanced to their fifth consecutive national semifinal with a four-set win over Purdue in 2025.
• Pitt is the fourth team in history to accomplish the feat and the first since Texas (2012-2016).
WELCOME TO THE HEIGHTS
• The Panthers provided a sneak peak at Victory Heights on Aug. 8 for the annual Blue-Gold scrimmage.
• The department held a Fan Fest to christen the new facility beginning at noon, with first serve at 2 p.m.
• In front of 2,341 fans, Team Gold pulled off a reverse sweep. Team Blue won the opening two sets 25-23 and 30-28 before Gold rallied with 25-18, 25-20, 15-7 scores for the win.
• Pitt then officially opened Victory Heights Sept. 11-13 for the Panther Challenge. The Panthers swept Jacksonville, High Point and Wright State on the way to a perfect record inside the building.
• The $240 million state-of-the-art athletics project provides Pitt student-athletes with national-caliber competition, training, sports performance and medicine facilities.
• Announced in 2020, Victory Heights includes a new 2,800-seat arena for the volleyball, gymnastics and wrestling programs. The volleyball team also has its own in-house practice facility.
• Following wins over Cal and No. 12 Stanford, Pitt is now 5-0 inside Victory Heights and has not lost a set in the building.
RECORD, REWRITTEN
• Olivia Babcock didn't just break Pitt's single-season kills record. She moved the bar. Babcock set the new standard with her 556th of the 2025 campaign against UMBC in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, finishing with 646.
• Wendy Hatlestad owned the previous record set in 2003 with 555.
• Babcock achieved this milestone a year after setting the 25-point rally scoring kill record, finishing the 2024 season with 538 kills.
HERE WE GO AGAIN
• One year after rewriting Pitt's single-season kills record, Olivia Babcock is once again putting the mark in her sights.
• She had 200 kills through the first 12 matches of the 2025 season and eventually broke the school's single-season record. She has 202 kills through 12 matches this year, putting her on record watch once again.
• Listed below are Babcock's kill totals compared to a year ago.
NO STARCK CONTRAST
• There's nothing stark about the consistency Izzy Starck has brought to Pitt's lineup. The junior setter ranks No. 9 in the country in assists per set and she has recorded six double-doubles thus far in 2026.
• The 2024 AVCA Freshman of the Year and a national champion at Penn State, Starck has averaged 10.87 assists per set during her career, which ranks second among active players across the entirety of the NCAA. She is averaging 10.85 assists per set in her first year with the Panthers.
• Starck is guiding an offense that is leading the nation with a .328 attack percentage. Pitt hit over .400 as a team in each of its three matches in the Panther Challenge, including an eye-popping .476 in a win over Wright State. During the team's current 21-set win streak, the Panthers have hit .374.
THE BAYLESS BUILD
• Blaire Bayless didn't arrive at Pitt fully built. She built herself here.
• Bayless has become the exception in this era of college athletics -- a player who has stayed at the same program for four years and made steady, continual growth throughout her career.
• As a freshman in 2023, Bayless played in just seven sets at Pitt with 13 kills. A year later, she saw much more action, playing in 33 matches and 89 sets.
• As a junior in 2025, Bayless truly blossomed. She played in 34 matches and 120 sets, increasing her production in almost every area, averaging a career-best 2.65 kills per set on .296 hitting with career-highs in digs (115/0.96 per set), blocks (58/0.48 per set) and points (349/2.91 per set).
• But Bayless didn't stop there. In 2026, she is averaging 3.28 kills per set, 1.93 digs per set, 0.63 blocks per set and 3.61 points per set -- each of which are on pace to be career highs. She has become one of the most important pieces to finding balance offensively while also contributing defensively.
D-FENCE
• Head Coach Dan Fisher said this could be the best defensive team he's coached. With 12 matches down, the numbers are making the case.
• Pitt outdug its first 10 opponents in 2026 and is averaging 3.8 per match more than their opponents.
• Up front, Pitt ranks No. 3 nationally (No. 1 in the ACC) in blocks at 3.08 per set. Sophomore Abbey Emch is No. 7 nationally at 1.57 blocks per set and Maaike Heilig is third among freshman nationally at 1.43 blocks per set.
• All of that adds up to a .163 attack percentage for opponents this year, ranking Pitt No. 30 in the country and second in the ACC despite playing six top 25 teams through the first 12 matches.
BLOCK PARTY
• Sophomore Abbey Emch and freshman Maaike Heilig are leading Pitt's frontline defense at the net.
• Emch and Heilig both rank among the top 25 blockers in the country, averaging 1.57 and 1.43 blocks per set. As a team, Pitt ranks third in the country, and first in the ACC, at 3.08 blocks per set.
• Six players have at least 24 blocks this year, led by Heilig with 53. Emch has 44 and Olivia Babcock has added 42.
• Emch had nine blocks in a three-set sweep over Cal and has at least four blocks in eight of the nine matches she has played in. Heilig has had at least six blocks five times.
