{"id":274412,"date":"2026-08-29T03:50:14","date_gmt":"2026-08-29T03:50:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/274412\/"},"modified":"2026-08-29T03:50:14","modified_gmt":"2026-08-29T03:50:14","slug":"kansas-falls-to-no-4-pittsburgh-in-season-opener","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/274412\/","title":{"rendered":"Kansas Falls to No. 4 Pittsburgh in Season Opener"},"content":{"rendered":"

PITTSBURGH, Penn. \u2014 Kansas battled No. 4 Pittsburgh on the road Friday night, but the Jayhawks fell short in four sets. Taylor Stanley<\/a> led the way with 15 kills, while Kenzie Dean<\/a> added 12 and Grace Nelson<\/a> chipped in nine. Setter Reese Messer<\/a> ran the offense efficiently, totaling 33 assists to go with four blocks, and Olivia Hasbrook<\/a> paced the Kansas defense with 12 digs.<\/p>\n

Kansas opened the match with an ace from Hasbrook, but Pittsburgh settled in and pulled away behind a string of Jayhawk miscues, building an 11-7 lead that forced a Kansas timeout. Dean kept the Jayhawks within striking distance with a pair of kills, including a cross-court swing that stopped the 5-0 Panther run. Dean got through the block again out of the media timeout, and Nelson added a pair of back-row attacks to make it 13-18, but a net violation gave Pittsburgh a 21-15 lead out of the media timeout. A block from Reese Ptacek<\/a>, followed by a block on Olivia Babcock from Ptacek and Logan Bell<\/a>, cut the deficit to 23-17, but Pittsburgh closed out the opening set with an ace, 25-17.<\/p>\n

The Jayhawks answered in the second set, opening with a Dean kill off a Messer assist to make it 1-0. A Ptacek-and-Stanley block tied it at 2-2, and Stanley worked through the block to make it 5-3. Kansas then tallied five straight points to build a 7-3 lead. A big-time block on the left from Nelson and Ptacek made it 8-4. The Jayhawk block came alive, led by Nelson and Ptacek, and Kansas’ lead grew to 12-6, forcing a Pittsburgh timeout. Pittsburgh earned a point out of a challenge, but Aisha Aiono<\/a> answered with a big swing out of the middle to push the lead to 15-9. Back-to-back points from Nelson forced another Panther timeout at 17-9, and the Kansas offense kept rolling. A Messer setter dump made it 20-12, and a triple block by Ptacek, Messer and Dean closed out the 25-14 set win.<\/p>\n

The third set was tight from the start. Pittsburgh grabbed the first point, but Kansas answered with three straight, and a Stanley ace tied it at 3-3. An error by Babcock trimmed the Jayhawks’ deficit to 7-5, and a block from Aiono and Messer pulled Kansas within one. Kansas strung together back-to-back points to make it 10-7 before a big block and a Stanley kill cut it to 10-9 out of a timeout. Nelson’s ace tied the set at 11-11. Dean found a gap in the back court to make it 15-14 out of a timeout, and Ptacek added a kill to tie it again at 15-15. Serving errors on both sides pushed it to 20-18, and a Kansas back-row attack error tied it at 20-20. Pittsburgh won a challenge to go up 23-21, forcing a Jayhawk timeout. Kansas rallied to tie it at 23-23, but the Panthers closed out the set, 25-23.<\/p>\n

Kansas pushed Pittsburgh again in the fourth. Kills from Stanley, plus a block from Aiono, Dean and Stanley, evened the set at 7-7. Stanley’s 14th kill of the night trimmed a Panther lead to two at 9-11. Dean added a kill of her own, but four straight points from Pittsburgh forced a Kansas timeout, and the Panthers scored again out of the break to go up 16-10. A kill from Messer and back-to-back Pittsburgh errors cut the deficit to 17-14. Messer took over at the service line to pull Kansas within one, 17-18, and a Stanley kill made it 18-19 before another put the Jayhawks up 20-19. Pittsburgh answered out of a timeout with a 3-0 run to go up 23-19 and closed out the match, 25-20.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PITTSBURGH, Penn. \u2014 Kansas battled No. 4 Pittsburgh on the road Friday night, but the Jayhawks fell short…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":274413,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[73,75,74],"class_list":["post-274412","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274412","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=274412"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274412\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/274413"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=274412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=274412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=274412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}