Troy University Athletics
Troy University
Georgia Southern University
Trojans Fall in Tourney Finale, 3-1
8/30/2009 1:30:00 AM | Volleyball
STATESBORO, Ga. - The top two teams of the Holiday Inn Invitational met on Saturday night to see who could come away from the weekend with a 3-0 record. The Trojans and the host Georgia Southern Eagles both put their undefeated records on the line, and unfortunately the Eagles kept theirs.
Georgia Southern defeated Troy 3-1. The Eagles took the first two sets, 25-20, 25-18, before Troy rallied to take set three, 17-25. Georgia Southern was able to regroup and take set four and the match, 25-18.
The Trojans once again were led offensively by Meghan Gilroy. The senior posted a .512 attack percentage on her way to knocking down 23 kills. Megan Henderson had 12 digs to go along with her 39 assists. The Trojans also got solid play out of freshman Devin Von Pingel who had eight kills with a .400 attack percentage. Troy's libero Emily Strader was also had double figure digs with 11.
Gilroy and Henderson both won All-Tournament honors.
In the first set the Trojans fell behind early with Georgia Southern winning the first two points. Troy was able to rally back and pull ahead by one at 4-5. However, the Eagles rattled four straight to go ahead 8-5, and from then on they didn't lose the lead.
The Trojans could never score more than two consecutive points. They also gave up another four point run to the Eagles, ending their chances at taking set one.
In the second set, the Trojans once again lost the first two points. However, this time they rebounded a little better and held a lead as late as 14-17. The Eagles were then able to use three Trojan attack errors to score six straight and take a 20-17 lead. From that point the Trojans were only able to score one more point as Georgia Southern went on the take the second set, 25-18. The Eagles finished the second set on a 10-1 run.
"We had an opportunity to take the second set, and we just didn't capitalize," said head coach Sonny Kirkpatrick.
However, the Trojans came back from the break determined to turn their fortunes around. The Trojans scored the first five points of the set to jump out to an early 0-5 lead. The Eagles scored the next points, but then the Trojans went on their longest scoring of the season thus far.
Up 2-5, the Trojans were able to score eight consecutive, six coming off of kills by Gilroy, to pull ahead 2-13. After that the Trojans and Eagles traded points until the score was 10-19. At that time, the Eagles won five of six points to pull within five at 15-20, but the set for never really in doubt as the Trojans went on to take it 17-25.
With momentum on their side, the Trojans went into set four looking to force the deciding fifth set. However, the Eagles took the lead early by winning six of the first eight points and going up 6-2. Troy won the next two points to get the score to 4-6, but unfortunately the Trojans would never get any closer than that. They trailed by as many as eight points and lost the final set, 25-18.
The Trojans posted their lowest attack percentage of the tournament at .174. The Trojans actually outkilled the Eagles at 47-51, but the downfall was the Trojans 27 errors to just 16 by the Eagles. The two teams were nearly equal in assists with the Trojans posting one more than the Eagles, 44-45.
"We had a lot of one-on-one opportunities with our outside hitters and they were just more aggressive than us," said Kirkpatrick, "That caused us to hit a lot of balls out of bounds."
"We'll learn from this weekend, we'll use it to get better, and we'll move on," Kirkpatrick said.
The Trojans will be in action again on Wednesday when they travel to Auburn, Ala. to take on the Tigers. Game time is set for 7 p.m. Check back with TroyTrojans.com for more news and notes on Trojan volleyball as well as all of Troy Athletics.
