In city where countryman Roberto Clemente is revered, Pitt volleyball's Valeria Vazquez Gomez seeks her own slice of Pittsburgh history

Long before she was asked to model one of the Pittsburgh Pirates’ promotional T-shirts, Valeria Vazquez Gomez knew all about Roberto Clemente.

Vazquez Gomez, a sixth-year outside hitter with the Pitt volleyball team, hails from Puerto Rico, birthplace of the most famous Pirate of all. She said her father is a huge Clemente fan, and even today, more than 50 years after Clemente’s untimely death, No. 21 is revered throughout the island nation.

He remains almost equally venerated in his adopted hometown of Pittsburgh, a fact not lost on Vazquez Gomez.

“It was pretty cool coming into Pittsburgh and having someone from Puerto Rico being such an amazing athlete and human being, too, and impacting the community,” she said.

Vazquez Gomez has had a significant impact of her own. She has played a pivotal role on Pitt’s teams that have reached three consecutive national semifinals for 12th-year coach Dan Fisher.

During those three seasons, over which the Panthers accumulated a 90-13 record and won ACC titles in 2022 and ‘23, Vazquez Gomez (6-foot-1) appeared in 322 sets, averaging 2.17 kills per set and totalling 610 digs, 72 aces and 92 blocks. She is a two-time All-ACC performer (first team in 2022, second team last season) and was an American Volleyball Coaches Association second-team All-American in 2022.

Last season, when Pitt went 29-5, she averaged 2.27 kills per set while hitting a career-best .258. (Think ofhitting percentage like batting average, except Clemente didn’t have hands directly in front of him trying to thwart his efforts.) She is the most veteran among a group of returning players that includes the following luminaries:

• senior setter/right side hitter Rachel Fairbanks, a 2023 first-team AVCA All-American who averaged 9.33 assists per set

• senior libero/defensive specialist Emmy Klika, a 2023 AVCA honorable mention All-American who averaged 3.02 digs per set

• sophomore outside hitter Torrey Stafford, an 2023 AVCA third-team All-American and All-ACC first-teamer who averaged 3.26 kills per set

• 6-foot-4 sophomore right side hitter Olivia Babcock, the 2023 AVCA National Freshman of the Year who stuffed the stat sheet with 3.62 kills per set (while hitting .306), 51 aces and 1.08 blocks per set

Perhaps it is no surprise, then, that the Panthers were picked as preseason favorites to win the ACC.

“There’s a lot of anticipation about this team,” said Fisher, who has more victories (169) than any Division I coach since 2018. “It’s no secret that we’ve been good the last few years, and we return a very good group, so we go into the season with very high hopes.”

For Vazquez Gomez, this season — finally — will be her last with the Panthers. A redshirt year during her first season (2019) followed by the covid season (2020) resulted in her getting a sixth season. Half of Fisher’s tenure.

Her “advanced” age has earned her the moniker “abuelita,” Spanish for granny, among her teammates.

But there’s nothing elderly about her game. Lithe and athletic, Vazquez Gomez is 133 kills away from becoming the 19th member of the program’s 1,000 kills club. And with 185 digs — she has had more than 200 in three of her four seasons — she also will reach 1,000 for her career.

Only seven other players in program history have reached 1,000 in both.

For Fisher, however, what a veteran player such as Vazquez Gomez brings in terms if intangibles is as important as her stats. Those, he said, help keep the program on an upward trajectory.

“There’s two things,” he said. “The older players who have (had success) have the confidence that, hey we can do this and it’s effective. The other thing is it just sets the tone for the younger players to see, oh, that’s the model.”

Said Vazquez Gomez: “The coaches do a really good job of recruiting people that are similar, people who love competing and they want to be here, they love each other. I think it makes it fun to be in a place that we’re competing at a really high level, and it pushes me to be a better player and a better person.”

The mental part of the game, Vazquez Gomez said, is where she has had the most growth during her time at Pitt. With the help of sports psychologist Bernie Holliday, who also works with the Pirates, she said she and her teammates have been able to cope with the high-pressure situations that present themselves during a season.

Chief among those is the pressure of the NCAA Tournament. And while Pitt has established itself among the nation’s elite teams, it has yet to clear that final hurdle of getting to the national championship match.

With many of the same players back from last season — also among them are grad outside hitter Cat Flood and promising sophomore Blaire Bayless — Pitt should be in the national championship conversation again.

Vazquez Gomez would like nothing more than to leave her own championship legacy in Pittsburgh.

“We have confidence, but we’re not complacent,” she said. “We still have a mission to accomplish, and we still need to work on a couple of things that we didn’t do last year and will definitely help us win a national championship this year.”