The Schnable Scoop: The Fans Showed Up. So Did the Volleyball.

Welcome to The Schnable Scoop, a weekly space where I'll dig into whatever's catching my eye across Pitt athletics. Some weeks that might be football, some weeks it might be an Olympic sport athlete doing something incredible nobody is talking about yet. But for the very first one, there was really only one option.

Pitt volleyball is how I made my name in this city. It's the program that taught me how to actually cover a team, how to find the story inside the box score, how to sit in a gym and feel something.

So when the lights at Victory Heights came up on Saturday afternoon and this program officially christened its new home, I got chills. Teary eyes, too, if I'm being honest. I wasn't totally sure a few months ago whether I'd even be here to see it.

But I was. And so were a whole lot of other people, in numbers you don't expect for a scrimmage.

That's really where this column has to start, because the crowd was the story before a single ball was served.

Fans started gathering the moment the Fan Fest opened, and by the time the Blue-Gold match actually began, Victory Heights looked less like a preseason tune-up and more like a night in October.

People brought signs. To a scrimmage. The rain that threatened all day stayed away, and it felt almost fitting — like the volleyball gods knew better than to mess with this one.

Kellen Petrone, who coached the gold team, put it about as well as anyone could.

"It's like a matinee and everyone is watching a movie," Petrone said, because there was no cheering for one team here. Everybody in the building was just watching good volleyball.

Petrone also spent the entire Q&A session before the match talking a little smack, which tracks.

And the fans ate it up, peppering him and the rest of the panel with questions ranging from the strategic to the slightly absurd. It set a tone. This wasn't a buttoned-up, sit-quietly kind of night. It was a celebration, and the players fed off it from the opening whistle.

Blaire Bayless noticed, too.

"It was so surreal," Bayless said. "To have the fans in here just gives this gym a completely different vibe. And the amount of people that we got to come to a Blue-Gold scrimmage is just so cool. It just reminds me of how grateful I am to have such a fan base culture here in Pittsburgh."

Now, this is usually where I'd tell you a team needs more reasons for people to get excited.

This team does not need my help with that. But since we're here, let's talk about what actually happened on the court, because it backed up every bit of the hype outside it.

Olivia Babcock hit from both sides of the net and finished two blocks shy of a triple double, racking up 31 kills after a slow start. She's the best player in the country, and she looks primed to prove it all over again this season.

It's almost a shame Jessica Smallwood is behind Babcock on the depth chart. Almost, because Babcock is the reigning AVCA Player of the Year. But Saturday, Smallwood was one of the top offensive players on the floor.

Bayless, meanwhile, has taken a real step forward as an all-around player. Her passing looked completely different, and she turned in a strong offensive game with presumed backup setter Haiti Tautua'a running the show.

That pairing is worth watching this season: If Tautua'a is truly Pitt's No. 2 option at setter, a Tautua'a-Smallwood combo gives Fisher a real 6-2 to pull out of his bag of tricks.

Sophia Gregoire looked like the second-best outside hitter on the floor behind Bayless, which says plenty considering the traffic at that position.

Izzy Starck's serve is as smooth as advertised, and her ability to move the ball around the court borders on unfair. Trinity Thompson brought her own flare from the service line.

Izzy Masten anchored the defense through the match like it was just another Tuesday practice. And up front, Maaike Heilig was a problem. She finished with 19 blocks, though the total comes with an asterisk — she had double the reps as the only middle on gold.

"I feel like Izzy Masten was pretty steady the whole way through, and I thought the same about Maaike Heilig," Fisher said. "I thought pretty much everyone else had a little bit more up and down. Some sets where they're on fire and some sets where they dipped. But those two were probably the most consistent for me."

The match itself refused to settle down. Gold trailed 15-8 in one set before ripping off a 15-5 run, only for blue to answer and force extra points before finally closing it out. Gold then took the third and fourth sets to push things to a fifth.

It was scrappy and physical in the best way — Ayanna Watson nearly ended up on the scorer's table chasing a ball down, Mallorie Meyer slid into a row of chairs doing the same.

Bayless said that competitiveness is baked into how this group operates every single day.

"We're a competitive group, even in practice," Bayless said. "The way we compete with each other, how far we push, how competitive we get — that's exactly how we practice every day. It's a really fun group, a really competitive group, and that makes us better every single day."

Saturday was just a scrimmage. But if the crowd, the energy and the volleyball on display are any indication, Victory Heights might be building toward something much bigger than an opening night.

The Rundown

A few other things worth your attention this week:

Larry Fitzgerald was officially enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame on Saturday, becoming the 11th player associated with Pitt to earn the sport's highest honor and pushing the Panthers into a tie for third among all colleges. Fitzgerald was clear about where it all started.

"Then I got to go to the University of Pittsburgh, and the city of Pittsburgh gave me two of the best years of my entire life," Fitzgerald said. "It was a time filled with incredible accomplishments ... The love and support I was surrounded by at that time, from Coach Walt Harris and his staff, is something I'll never forget."

All love celebrating Larry Legend ????

Read more on hall of fame weekend ??https://t.co/ug4iSUniDC pic.twitter.com/pUnfkMHvmd
— Pitt Football (@Pitt_FB) August 8, 2026

Elsewhere, women's soccer opens its season Wednesday against Youngstown State, with a marquee matchup against Texas already on the horizon. It's an exciting start for a team built around a top-tier freshman class, paired with a group of returners who know what it takes to compete.