Troy University Athletics
Troy heads to Mobile to face South Alabama
10/25/2007 5:00:00 AM | Volleyball
TROY, Ala. - The Troy University Trojans look to keep their Sun Belt Conference volleyball tournament hopes alive, as they travel to Mobile to face the University of South Alabama for the second time this season on Saturday.
"If we want to give ourselves a chance to make conference playoffs this is a
must win," Troy volleyball coach Sonny Kirkpatrick said. "Basically
every game from here on-out is a must-win, have to be ready to play
or we can be beaten in any of the matches."
The Trojans defeated South Alabama in four games earlier this season; 30-27, 25-30, 30-19, 30-13, in Troy. They will look to break a three-way for seventh place in the conference with North Texas and Arkansas State, who play each other this Friday night in Jonesboro.
In the first match this season against the Jaguars, Aubre Smith led the offensive attack with 13 kills, while Meghan Gilroy added 12 and Kerry Heinz 11 in the victory. Defensively, Jean McCarthy recorded 17 digs, while Emily Strader added 12. Megan Henderson added 16 digs and recorded 46 assists for the victorious Trojans.
Troy (14-14, 5-7 SBC) is currently fourth in East Division, while South Alabama (9-14, 3-9 SBC) is sixth. The Trojans are tied for seventh overall, just a game back of New Orleans for the sixth spot in the race for the conference tournament.
With the season winding down, the four teams vying for the sixth and seventh spots have matches against the top two teams in each division remaining on their schedule. North Texas travels to Arkansas State, Arkansas-Little Rock and Denver, and plays New Orleans at home to close out the season. Arkansas State plays Denver at home and travels to UALR and New Orleans, while the Privateers still have UALR and Denver along with the matches against North Texas and Arkansas State.
The Trojans travel to Western Kentucky (November 2) and Middle Tennessee (November 3), before returning home for their final two matches of the season on November 9 and 10 - against Florida International and Florida Atlantic.
"We need to win as many of our matches that we have left to give ourselves a shot at making the conference tournament," Kirkpatrick said. "When we played New Orleans and Arkansas State, we anticipated the logjam that is there now, and we knew that those matches were really important. We just didn't play well, which put us in the situation we are in now. We will see what kind of character our team has the remainder of the season."
Meanwhile, the Troy-South Alabama match is set for 2 pm on Saturday.
