They say all good things must eventually come to an end.

The hope for the Pitt women’s volleyball team was that its awesome 2023 season would end with a championship parade.

Unfortunately, the Panthers season came to a crashing halt thanks to a sweep at the hands of Nebraska in the national semifinals in Tampa on Thursday night. It was the third-straight year in which Pitt reached the Final Four, and it is now the third year in a row that the Panthers failed to reach the championship game.

Nebraska, who entered the 32-team tournament as the number-one overall seed, previously reached the title game in 2021 after also getting past the Panthers in the semifinal round.

The Cornhuskers, who have won five national titles, will try to win their first championship since 2017 and third since 2015.

Nebraska will take on Texas, who defeated Wisconsin, 3-1, in the other semifinal match on Thursday, in the championship round at Amalie Arena in Tampa, Florida, on Saturday at 3 p.m. Texas will be going for its second straight title and fourth in school history.

While it was a disappointing ending for Pitt, who lost by scores of 25-20, 25-23 and 25-17, the program has come a long way in recent years. After only reaching the NCAA tournament twice between 1995 and 2015, the Panthers have now been to the dance every season since 2016. Furthermore, Pitt has won five regular-season ACC championships since 2017 and, to repeat, has reached the Final Four for a third-straight season, an accomplishment the program had never achieved prior to 2021.

The Pitt women’s volleyball program is now on the map as a national power and should stay there for a while under the guidance of head coach Dan Fisher, who was hired in 2013.

The only thing left for the Panthers’ women’s volleyball program to do is to bring home a national title. With the football team struggling and the men’s basketball program trying to reclaim its 2000s status after nearly a decade of irrelevance, Pitt women’s volleyball has set a standard and given Panthers fans and alumni something to be proud of.

Despite its impressive three-year run, it feels like the Panthers’ women’s volleyball team still has some work to do.

The journey is not over.

Maybe the Pitt women’s volleyball journey will end with a championship parade just yet.