University of Pittsburgh Athletics
Pitt
SMU
No. 2 Pitt To Face No. 6 SMU In Top 10 Clash In The Pete
10/6/2026 12:16:00 PM | Volleyball
PITTSBURGH - No. 2 Pitt is off to a 14-0 start to the season and has now swept eight straight contests heading into a pivotal pair of matches against No. 6 SMU that will go a long way towards determining an ACC champion. The teams square off Wednesday night at 7 p.m. inside the Petersen Events Center before a Sunday tilt in Dallas.
Pitt and SMU are two of the four teams sitting at 4-0 in ACC play (along with Louisville and North Carolina).
The Panthers have beaten six ranked teams this year and have dropped only four sets on the season. In total, Pitt has won 27 consecutive sets since losing the opening set at Utah on Sept. 6.
SMU has won six straight, dropping just one set along the way. The Mustangs' two losses were a five-set defeat at No. 8 TCU and a three-set loss to No. 16 Purdue.
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 14-match winning streak is second nationally (behind only Nebraska's 15-0 start to the 2026 season) and the team's six-match road win streak is tied for the fourth longest in the NCAA.
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 167-20 (.893). That includes a record of 89-9 (.908) 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.
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 106-12. 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 .852 win percentage ranks just ahead of Nebraska's Dani Busboom Kelly (.848).
• Fisher, in fact, is fourth among all coaches in NCAA Division I history (minimum five years) in winning percentage.
THREE FACES OF EXCELLENCE
• Pitt, SMU and Indiana are the only three schools in the country to be currently ranked in the top 25 in football, volleyball and men's soccer.
• Pitt volleyball is of course ranked No. 2 in the AVCA Top 25 poll, while men's soccer is No. 10 in the United Soccer Coaches poll and football is No. 25 in the AP Top 25.
• SMU volleyball sits at No. 5, with men's soccer at No. 1 and football at No. 24.
• Rounding it out, Indiana is No. 15 in volleyball, No. 2 in men's soccer and No. 7 in football.
STREAKING FROM THE START
• Pitt's 14-0 start to the season is the fourth-longest win streak to open a season in program history. The 2021 and 2024 teams each started the year at 15-0.
• 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 the NCAA Tournament second round.
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 .325 attack percentage.
• The Panthers had hit at least .300 for six straight matches prior to failing to reach that percentage in a sweep at Boston College.
• Pitt has been helped by the lowest error total in the country. The Panthers have just 172 attack errors with Maryland having the second-fewest at 184.
• In total, Pitt has hit at least .300 in 9-of-14 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).
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.
NO STARCK CONTRAST
• There's nothing stark about the consistency Izzy Starck has brought to Pitt's lineup. The junior setter ranks No. 13 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 10.84 assists per set during her career, which ranks second among active players across the entirety of the NCAA. She is averaging 10.71 assists per set in her first year with the Panthers.
• Starck is guiding an offense that is leading the nation with a .325 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.
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 3.13 kills per set, 1.80 digs per set, 0.61 blocks per set and 3.46 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 14 matches down, the numbers are making the case.
• Pitt has outdug 12-of-15 opponents in 2026 and is averaging 3.5 per match more than their opponents.
• Up front, Pitt ranks No. 4 nationally (No. 1 in the ACC) in blocks at 3.02 per set. Maaike Heilig is No. 13 nationally, and first among all freshmen, at 1.49 blocks per set and Abbey Emch is No. 19 at 1.44 blocks.
• All of that adds up to a .163 attack percentage for opponents this year, ranking Pitt No. 21 in the country and second in the ACC despite playing six top 25 teams through the first 14 matches.
BLOCK PARTY
• Freshman Maaike Heilig and Sophomore Abbey Emch are leading Pitt's frontline defense at the net.
• Heilig and Emch both rank among the top 20 blockers in the country, averaging 1.57 and 1.43 blocks per set. As a team, Pitt ranks fourth in the country, and first in the ACC, at 3.02 blocks per set.
• Six players have at least 28 blocks this year, led by Heilig with 55. Emch and Olivia Babcock have 46 apiece.
• Emch had nine blocks in a three-set sweep over Cal and has at least four blocks in eight of the 11 matches she has played in. Heilig has had at least five blocks eight times.
