Pitt Volleyball Welcomes Back Penn State Rivalry

The Pitt Panthers host their first matchup against Penn State this spring.

PITTSBURGH -- The Pitt Panthers have held a long-standing rivalry with a number of teams, but their in-state rivalry with Penn State is one that fans hold up for its importance, alongside West Virginia in the Backyard Brawl. 

The rivalry with the Nittany Lions is one that has extended to the volleyball court in recent years and the two teams will face off twice this spring season. The Panthers will host on Sunday at Fitzgerald Field House, while the Nittany Lions will close out both team's spring next Friday at Rec Hall in University Park, Pa.

Pitt Volleyball Background

Pitt is one of the best volleyball teams in the country, making it to eight straight NCAA Tournaments, four consecutive Elite Eights and the past three Final Fours, the only team in the country to do so.

Panthers head coach Dan Fisher will start his 12th season in charge of the team this fall, as he looks to finally win that elusive National Title.

The team returns all but two starters from last season in middle blockers Chiamaka Nwokolo and Emma Monks.

First-Team All-American and National Freshman of the Year right side hitter Olivia Babcock is ready to terrorize opposing back rows with her dominant top-spin serve and powerful swings.

Fellow First-Team All-American senior setter Rachel Fairbanks will control the team's attacks with her passing. Senior libero/defensive specialist Emmy Klika, who was an All-American Honorable Mention, will work with a sixth-year outside hitter, Valeria Vazquez Gomez, to stay strong in the back row.

Joining Kilka and Vazquez Gomez in that back row is sophomore outside hitter Torrey Stafford, who earned Third Team All-American honors last season. She is still healing from an injury and is unlikely to play the rest of spring.

Middle blockers in redshirt junior Bre Kelley and Rachel Jepsen have worked to come back from injuries that sidelined them for most of last season and have a chance to make this team the best in Pitt history.

Serve specialist, fan favorite, and graduate student outside hitter Cat Flood also chose to leave the transfer portal to return for her final season. Junior libero/defensive specialist Dillyn Griffin will join Flood as a secondary serve specialist, showing off her southpaw float serve that gets defenses all out of wack.

Sophomores in outside hitter Blaire Bayless and setter Haiti Tautua'a are pushing for more playing time this season. So too are early freshman enrollees in middle blockers Ryla Jones and Bianca Garibaldi.

It's just the spring, but if this team stays healthy, they have their best shot to not just make it back to the Final Four, but win it all.

Penn State Volleyball Background

Penn State has some of the best history of any program in women’s volleyball, with incredible amounts of success throughout. 

They have seven National Championships, second most behind Stanford with nine, with four straight from 2007-10 and back-to-back in 2013-14. 

All of these came under Russ Rose, who served as head coach of the Nittany Lions from 1979-2021, 43 seasons in charge, winning a Division I record 1,330 games.

Katie Schumacher-Cawley, who played on the first Penn State National Championship team in 1999, took over the program in 2022 and has gotten the team to make back-to-back Sweet 16 appearances.

They have some great players on their roster, with graduate outside hitter Jess Mruzik, who earned Second Team All-American and First Team All-Big Ten honors last season, the highlight. Graduate student outside hitter/right side hitter Camryn Hannah earned Second Team All-Big Ten honors herself.

The Nittany Lions also added two transfers from Nebraska, who finished runners-up last season, in redshirt freshman outside hitter/right side hitter Caroline Jurevicius and junior middle blocker Maggie Mendelson. They also landed Iowa State graduate student transfer in Jordan Hopp.

History of Pitt-Penn State Volleyball Rivalry

The two programs have faced off 55 times, which is the second most Pitt has played a team, with rival Syracuse first at 59 games. Penn State holds the all-time series lead, 34-21.

Most of these meetings came prior to 1991, with only nine matches between the two since then, with three of them coming in the NCAA Tournament.

Panthers head coach Dan Fisher arrived in the program in 2013 and started to build it into a respectable outfit in the middle of the 2010s.

His first two NCAA Tournament appearances in 2016 and 2017, they had to play Penn State in the Second Round on the road, losing both times in four sets.

Pitt and Penn State played a home-and-away over a weekend in September 2019, the last time the two played in the regular season. Pitt stunned Penn State by sweeping them on the road, their first win at Rec Hall since 1980 and just their second sweep there. Penn State got revenge in front of a program record crowd at the time at the Petersen Events Center, winning in five sets just two days later.

The last match in the Keystone Classic came in the Second Round of the NCAA Tournament in 2021 at the Petersen Events Center. The No. 1 Panthers took down the Nittany Lions in four sets, the last match of Rose's tenure.

That victory for Pitt volleyball put them on top of the commonwealth, something most people would never have predicted after Penn State's dominance through the early part of the 2010s.

Future of the Rivalry

With any sport these two rivals both play in, there is general excitement around any game or match against them. Outside of the nonsense surrounding the football series, other games featuring Pitt and Penn State have great fanfare and moments that make any rivalry great.

The men's soccer teams opened their seasons in 2023 at Ambrose Urbanic Field, which ended in a 1-1 draw, multiple yellow cards, a player for Pitt sent off and a crowd filled to capacity with students and families alike.

While these are just two spring games with no stakes, it wouldn't come as a surprise to see large crowds at both campuses eager to see their teams compete against a rival, especially in women's volleyball, which continues to grow.

Fisher is excited to face the Nittany Lions next week and wants to get them back on the schedule going forward, something that should come as amazing news to Pitt volleyball supporters.

"We're talking about it in the fall," Fisher said on a future regular-season matchup. "No announcements yet. Nothing's been signed, but hopefully we can get them on our schedule."

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