Syracuse’s comeback attempt fails in 2nd loss to Pitt of the season
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Lauren Hogan hit the ball on her serve and watched as it hit the net and failed to go onto Pittsburgh’s side. Hogan’s serve error was during the first set point of the game, putting the Orange down 1-0 against the third-best team in the country.
Syracuse slowly jogged into the huddle to regroup, but the morale and energy levels were low despite having the largest crowd of the season at the women’s building.
It took an additional set for Syracuse (16-11, 5-10 Atlantic Coast) to find its rhythm against Pittsburgh (23-2, 13-2 ACC), and after going down 2-0. Syracuse rallied and compiled a comeback that fell just short against one of the best teams in the country on Friday, nonetheless showing improvement after losing in straight sets against the Panthers exactly one week ago.
Polina Shemanova served at the start of the game for SU, but Pitt returned the ball quickly with an untouched spike from Sabrina Starks to go up 1-0. Syracuse looked lackadaisical to start and dropped the next four rallies, after giving up two kills and two attack errors from Marina Markova and Naomi Franco.
The Panthers then followed it up with a service error and an attack error, but they recovered and scored on three straight rallies to go up 8-3, forcing SU head coach Leonid Yelin to call a timeout before things got out of hand early.
For the rest of the set after the timeout, Syracuse struggled to close the gap due to errors from some of the Orange’s most reliable players. SU had scored two straight to cut Pitt’s lead to three. But on the next point, Elena Karakasi set Markova too far away.
A couple of points later, Shemanova attempted an attack from the left side but was blocked by two Pitt players. Syracuse recovered from the block and set the ball to Shemanova, but the ball went out of bounds and gave the Panthers a 12-7 lead.
Syracuse lost the set 25-17 and only managed a .040 hitting percentage compared to a .500 success rate from the Panthers. Syracuse also totaled eight attack errors, which contributed to the low hitting percentage.
The second set was similar to the first, but Syracuse increased its hitting percentage to .156 and held Pitt to just under half of its first set percentage. Still, errors led to another set loss for SU. To start off the set, Markova watched as Rachel Fairbanks served it over to her right near the out-of-bounds line, but Markova misjudged and let it hit the ground inbounds to put the team down 1-0. The Orange never had a lead in the second set.
The set concluded as Izzy Plummer and Karakasi attempted a block and deflected the ball behind them. Shemanova and Yuliia Yastrub ran towards the ball, but they arrived too late and SU found itself in a 2-0 hole.
“We were still warming up for the next three sets,” Shemanova joked. “The mentality wasn’t there.”
But the third set started out with high effort from SU after a dive by Hogan kept the ball alive for the Orange attack. Hogan then hammered a spike from the left side that went untouched. She pumped her fist, and the rest of the team showed energy as well, showing that they began to settle in.
The Orange kept their distance from the Panthers and after a missed bump from Hogan to put Pitt within two, Syracuse relied on Abby Casiano and Shemanova for a 7-3 run.
Syracuse went on a final five-point run to the end of the set, securing its first set victory. SU had a .333 hitting percentage and only four blocks.
Early in the fourth set, both teams went back and forth in a long rally before Markova tipped the ball over the Pitt defense to put Syracuse down by one. The set stayed back and forth and was tied at 22-22 before Shemanova hit the ball over the net. Syracuse closed out the set with a quick kill from Franco and an ace from Karakasi. Casiano turned away from the court and pumped up the crowd after a comeback looked realistic.
But in the fifth and final set, Syracuse went down early. With only 15 points needed for a win, every play was more costly, and when Shemanova mishandled a serve, the Orange dropped their seventh point. Yelin was forced to call a timeout.
“It’s a flipcoin game and much less room for mistakes because you can’t come back,” Yelin said about the fifth set.
Syracuse made another costly mistake later when Shemanova went up for a desperation spike on the left side of the court but altered her aim because of two Pitt blockers. She hit the ball too far left, however, and Syracuse trailed 12-6.
The night ended how the first two sets started when Markova had an attack error after she hit the ball too wide. Still, Syracuse made it to the fifth set and fought alongside one of the toughest teams in the country.
“I would take this loss over many wins we had,” Yelin said.