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Toward the end of the first set, Marina Markova prepared to receive a serve from Pittsburgh’s Leketor Member-Meneh. Instead of bumping the serve to start an Orange attack, Markova completely mishandled the serve, bumping it into the Women’s Building bleachers. Other Syracuse players couldn’t run to save it, giving the Panthers a 19-12 lead.

Three points later, Markova had another bump error, putting it low and behind the head of Polina Shemanova, who was waiting on the left side of the court to receive it. However, Shemanova couldn’t keep the rally going as the ball hit the court, extending the lead to 21-13.

Despite almost pulling off a remarkable comeback trailing two sets to none, Syracuse (16-11, 5-10 Atlantic Coast) fell to No. 3 Pittsburgh (24-2, 13-2 ACC) in five sets. While SU made improvements  in the third and fourth sets — the two sets SU won — defensive errors contributed to the Orange’s struggles in the first, second and fifth sets.

A week prior, Pitt dominated the Orange in straight sets, and extending the match to five sets was a significant improvement for Syracuse. Head coach Leonid Yelin said he’d rather take this loss more than some of SU’s previous wins because of the comeback in the second half of the match.

But to open the second set, the Panthers’ Rachel Fairbanks recorded a service ace on the left sideline as Markova watched it hit the ground in front of her own bench, thinking the ball was landing out of bounds. Two points later, SU’s defensive specialist Lauren Hogan completely mishandled a Fairbanks serve, allowing Pitt to jump to a quick 3-0 lead in the set.

As Pitt began to close out the second set, Yuliia Yastrub dug a Panthers kill attempt but her bump was too strong and set up an easy spike right in the center of the court. To close the set, Elena Karakasi and Izzy Plummer’s block on the Pitt kill went high and far behind, which threw off Shemanova and Yastrub. The ball landed and SU dropped the second set, not having held a lead in the match to that point.

“I, personally, wouldn’t take the first two sets into consideration because we were still warming up,” Shemanova said. “As coach said, the mentality wasn’t there. Obviously, you (are) nervous.”

After subsequent stronger sets, the Orange entered the fifth set with momentum. But that set ultimately reflected the first two rather than the third and fourth as the Orange fell into a larger deficit.

To put Pitt up 3-2 early, Karakasi went up for a block but the ball hit the net antenna, automatically resulting in a Panther point. Several points later, Shemanova mishandled a serve, which set up a free kill for Pitt in the center of the court as the bump went just over the net for an easy spike. And when the Orange trailed 10-6, Hogan defended a serve that was dug to no other Syracuse player, and it fell to the ground for another receiving error. Ultimately, SU dropped the final set 15-9.

“We just have to have everyone to get in the game,” Yelin said postgame. “In some (sets), we have few players and in another set we have more than few, and from the third (set), we start getting more and more people really playing and contributing.”

Statistically, SU bested the Panthers in total blocks and digs with 11 and 68, respectively. But with Pitt recording 67 kills and only three receiving errors as opposed to SU’s 57 and six, respectively, the Panthers were able to pick up their sixth straight win.

SU faces Florida State this Sunday before concluding its regular season against Duke and on the road against North Carolina State.

Published on November 12, 2021 at 11:55 pm

Contact Cole: colebambini@gmail.com | @ColeBambini