Troy University Athletics
Troy hits the road to face top two East Division teams
11/1/2007 5:00:00 AM | Volleyball
TROY, Ala. - The Troy University volleyball team has five games matches remaining on their regular season schedule.
They find themselves one game up in the loss column of becoming the seventh seed in the upcoming Sun Belt Conference Volleyball Tournament.
The Trojans are on the road this weekend facing the top two teams in the East Division when they take on Western Kentucky (Friday, November 2) and Middle Tennessee State (Saturday, November 3). The Trojans have played both teams all ready one time this season, dropping both matches at Trojan Arena.
Much like last week's match at South Alabama, Troy (15-14, 6-7 SBC) knows what it has to do in order to qualify for the Sun Belt Conference Tournament.
"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."
This weekend is big, not just for the Trojans themselves, but for the teams that they are chasing and the teams that are chasing the Trojans for the final two spots in the conference tournament. On Friday Troy faces Western Kentucky (23, 12-2 SBC), while North Texas (10-18, 6-8 SBC) hosts Lousiana-Lafayette, and Arkansas State (9-17, 5-9 SBC) travel to Arkansas-Little Rock for key matches.
On Saturday, the Trojans face Middle Tennessee State (26-2, 13-1 SBC), while North Texas hosts Louisiana-Monroe.
"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."
However, the Trojans must focus on one match at a time, and the first match of the weekend takes place on Friday at 7 pm at Western Kentucky. Visit the volleyball schedule link to find live stats of the match.
