Pitt came within a set — and, for brief moments, a point — of the athletic department’s first Final Four in 70 years.
Playing in its first NCAA regional final in program history, the Panthers women’s volleyball team lost an excruciating fashion to Washington in a five-set thriller Monday afternoon in Omaha, Neb.
Chinaza Ndee had 16 kills and Kayla Lund 13 for the Panthers, who took the first two sets with relative ease and were twice awarded points late in the fourth set that gave them match points that ended up being overturned by Huskies’ video-review challenges.
Washington won the deciding fifth set 15-9 to send them to Thursday’s national semifinal.
“We were inches away from the Final Four,” Pitt coach Dan Fisher said, “and the credit goes to (the players) and their hard work.
“I hope this failure is a motivator and makes our players that are returning want to be even better.”
๐ผ ๐๐ผ๐๐๐พ๐ผ๐ ๐๐๐.
Unseeded Pitt falls just short of the @NCAAVolleyball National Semifinal.
We made history this season and couldn't be prouder.
THANK YOU, YINZERS.#H2P | #NCAAVB pic.twitter.com/nMhthqRM4x
— Pitt Volleyball (@Pitt_VB) April 19, 2021
It was a sudden end to a historic run for the Panthers, who never had advanced as far as the regional semifinal in women’s volleyball.
With respect to a bracketed, team, true tournament-style event, Pitt’s most recent “Final Four” was men’s basketball in 1941. Long before the labels “Elite Eight” or “Final Four” were popularized, those Panthers beat North Carolina in the national quarterfinals.
This women’s volleyball Elite Eight was all “chalk” other than unseeded Pitt (19-5), which had beaten No. 14 Utah and No. 3 Minnesota in the prior two rounds. But the Panthers were not your typical unseeded team in what has been anything but a typical college sports season.
Fears related to the coronavirus pandemic bumped most of the women’s volleyball season from its traditional fall schedule to the spring. And Pitt was undefeated in 15 matches played in the spring, their 0-2 start and 4-4 fall schedule an increasingly distant memory heading into Monday’s match against the No. 6 seed Huskies (20-3).
How about those Huskies?! ๐#NCAAVB x @UWVolleyball pic.twitter.com/kOhrtm1QuN
— NCAA Women's Volleyball (@NCAAVolleyball) April 19, 2021
Pitt cruised in the first two sets, trailing only once and only by one point (at 10-9 in Set 2) while leading by as many as eight points in the first set and five in the second. They won 25-20 and 25-21, respectively. The third set, though, was all Huskies, 25-16.
“I think we just kind of got away from the idea of going for it,” Ndee, a senior, said. “We’ve been playing to win this whole tournament, and in that moment up, 2-0, I think we just started playing not to lose. We started playing more tentative, talking less, communicating less — things that are kind of the heart and soul of this team. We just let those slip. Washington is a good team, and if you give them a little break, they take advantage of it.”
After trailing by as many as six in the fourth set, Pitt made it close and set up a dramatic finish by way of a 10-3 run. The teams traded points with neither leading by more than one from 20-20 to 24-24. The two Washington challenges overturned Pitt points, and the Huskies took advantage of their set point.
“I don’t think (officials) got it wrong,” Ndee said. “Obviously, you don’t want to lose on a call. You want to lose playing volleyball. But it was just a tough draw. We fought until the end and tried our hardest.”
Washington, which has won nine consecutive and 13 of 14, never trailed in the fifth and deciding set, going out to a 6-1 lead. Pitt never got closer than four points.
“I just congratulated (Pitt’s players) on a fantastic year,” Fisher said. “It was a helluva year. We fought hard. We’ve lost one game in 2021. They have a lot to be proud of, and I’d do it all over again.”
Chris Adamski is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Chris by email at cadamski@triblive.com or via Twitter .
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Pitt women's volleyball misses out on Final Four in excruciating NCAA regional final loss - TribLIVE
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