No. 8 Pitt volleyball wins again, topples Syracuse, 3-1

Pitt’s football team may not be expected to defeat Syracuse tomorrow at homecoming but the volleyball team took care of business against the Orange with a 3-1 Friday night win.

The victory keeps the Panthers perfect as they pushed their record to 16-0. Syracuse falls to 8-5. Syracuse was perfect themselves coming to tonight, to some degree. The Orange had been 4-0 in the ACC this year and the Panthers were their first conference loss.

Syracuse looks to be a decent team so while the win may not do much for the Panthers’ RPI, the Orange are a team that could be okay this year.

As other teams will this weekend, the players had the retro Pitt colors on, and the uniforms looked as great as you would expect. Pitt crushed the Orange in the first set, dominating that one, 25-9. It didn’t look like Syracuse would put up much of a fight after that, but they did. Pitt narrowly won the second set, 25-23 before actually dropping the third by that margin. The Panthers cruised in the fourth, though, winning 25-11 to close things out.

Tonight it seemed to be the Kayla Lund and Nika Markovic show. I don’t have kill totals yet for the two but Kayla got up over 20, which was the third time she’s done that this year.

The team had a little bit of trouble in the middle but overall, another very impressive showing. Whenever you win two sets by an average of 15 points, that’s kind of unreal.

Next up, the team will face Boston College. The Eagles could present a bit of a challenge as they enter the weekend 12-4. They were swept by Duke and also lost a close match to Wake Forest, so they’re not as good as several of the teams Pitt has seen this year. But they might not be the walkover opponent we’ve seen at other times this season.

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