Troy University Athletics
Trojans Return Home ... Finally
10/16/2008 5:00:00 AM | Volleyball
After spending 23 days on a bus or in a hotel room for the first 48 days of the season, the Troy Trojans will return home to the friendly confines of Trojan Arena this weekend to face Florida Atlantic and Florida International. The Trojans are hoping to build off a 2-2 week last week (all on the road) in matches against two teams that they played less than 20 days ago in Florida.
Troy (11-12, 2-6 Sun Belt) has played 19 of their first 23 matches on the road to open the 2008 season, and have only been at home for back-to-back contests just once this season - against two of the West Division's best in Arkansas State and UALR.
However, the Trojans must set their sights on the Sun Belt Conference Tournament, a tournament in which the top eight teams are eligible and if the season ended today, Troy would be the 10th team. Fortunately for Troy, they have nine matches remaining and of the nine matches, five are at home at Trojan Arena. They also find themselves just one game back in the win column of eighth place Florida Atlantic heading into the weekend's matches.
"We have some must-wins coming up," Troy coach Sonny Kirkpatrick said. "It's nice to know that five of the last nine games are at home. We always play better at home because we feed off the energy that our crowd gives us."
The crowd should be good this weekend, as the home volleyball matches are surrounded by home events throughout the weekend including a home football game Saturday night against the same volleyball opponent Saturday afternoon - FIU.
Troy faces Florida Atlantic (10-8, 3-3 Sun Belt) Friday night at 7 pm, after losing to the Owls 3-1 in Boca Raton back on September 26. They also will face East Division leading FIU (15-4, 5-1 Sun Belt) Saturday afternoon at 1 pm, after losing to the Golden Panthers 3-0 in Miami on September 27.
"We always play better against teams the second team because we are familiar with what they do," Kirkpatrick said. "We are able to adjust to what we saw the first time we played them. Plus, it helps that we are at home this time, and sleeping in our own beds and not in a hotel room."
That is an added bonus for Troy, being in their own beds for two key conference matches, after spending five days and four nights on the road in Louisiana to earn a 2-1 record against that state's schools. The Trojans will also look to build off the momentum of winning two matches on the road in thsi weekend's matches against two very tough teams.
"We played consistent and that's why we did so well last weekend," Kirkpatrick said. "We played consistent in our two home losses the weekend before, but we weren't quite able to put it all together."
All volleyball matches are free to the public, and can be seen on troytrojans.com. Live stats and webstreaming will be provided for each contest at Trojan Arena.
