Soccer Primed and Ready for Final Weekend Matches at Georgia State, Georgia Southern

TROY, Ala -- The Troy soccer program hits the road for its final two games of the season this Friday night (6 p.m. Central) against Georgia Southern and Sunday afternoon (Noon Central) against Georgia Southern.

Following an eight-day hiatus, the Trojans will most likely return to action a week from Monday (Nov. 2) for the first round of the Sun Belt Conference Tournament down in Foley, Ala.

HOW TO FOLLOW: Troy (1-6-1 Overall, 1-6-1 Sun Belt) vs. Georgia State (7-1-2 Overall, 7-1-2 Sun Belt)
DATE: October 23, 2020
KICKOFF: 6:00 p.m. CST
LOCATION: Center Parc Stadium (Atlanta, Ga.)
LIVE STATS: TroyStats.com
SERIES: Troy leads 4-3-1; (0-3-1 at GSU)
TWITTER: @TroyTrojansWSOC

HOW TO FOLLOW: Troy (0-5-1 Overall, 0-5-1 Sun Belt) at Georgia Southern (2-7-1, 2-4-1)
DATE: October 25, 2020
KICKOFF: 12 p.m. (Noon) CST
LOCATION: Eagle Field (Statesboro, Ga.)
LIVE STATS: TroyStats.com
SERIES: Troy leads 6-3; (2-1 at Georgia Southern)
TWITTER: @TroyTrojansWSOC

COMPLETE PERFORMANCE:
The Trojans turned in their most complete performance of the season Sunday afternoon, dropping Coastal Carolina 1-0. Before the 1 p.m. contest, Troy honored its two seniors, Eleonore Freby and Karina Valeriano. In the victory, freshman Sydney Babineaux recorded her first career a goal and classmate Lindsey LaRoche recorded both her first career victory and clean sheet. Troy outshot CCU 11-7.

OFFENSE IS COMING AROUND:
After being outshot over the first five contests of the season, the Trojans have outshot their opponents in back-to-back contests. Troy outshot App State 14-2 on Friday night and Coastal Carolina 11-7 on Sunday.

NEXT STOP FOLEY:
Following this weekend's games against Georgia State and Georgia Southern, the Trojans will not play again until Nov. 2 in the first round of the Sun Belt Conference Tournament. Originally scheduled to include just eight of the 11 SBC teams, the conference tournament will instead include all 11 Sun Belt Conference teams. Split up into the east and west, the bottom six teams (three from west, three from the east) will play in the first round on Nov. 2. The last-place finisher in the east will play the third-place finisher in the west, while teams four and five will play the opposite finisher from the opposite division. The complete Sun Belt Conference Tournament schedule should be released next week.

ON THE PROWL:
Georgia State enters Friday's matchup in second place in the Sun Belt eastern division. The Panthers are just one point behind South Alabama (18 points) for the top-spot in the division. The Panthers had their four-match winning streak snapped in last Sunday's 2-2 draw against Georgia Southern. With the draw, Georgia State did however extend its unbeaten streak to seven consecutive matches (5-0-2). The Panthers last setback was a 4-2 loss on Sept. 20 against Coastal Carolina. So far this season, Georgia State has found the back of the net 16 times, the sixth most nationally. 10 different Panthers have recorded a goal, led by Maddie Johnston (three goals) and Kelsee Holloway (two goals, two assists). In net, freshman Jaddah Foos has been strong, posting a goals-against-average of just 0.67. The freshman is unbeaten (4-0-2) in six matches this season.

FLY EAGLES FLY:
Georgia Southern enters this weekend with an overall record of 2-7-1, and a 2-4-1 mark in conference play. Since defeating the Trojans 2-1 back on Oct. 4, the Eagles have earned a win (App State), a draw (Georgia State) and a pair of 3-0 setbacks (Coastal Carolina, Citadel). So far this season the Eagles are 0-4-1 at home. Marcela Montoya has scored three goals and added an assist for Ga Southern, while goalie Sara Story has allowed just 14 goals in nine matches.

GED TALKS:
"We have another long trip ahead of us this weekend, but we're excited about it. Tomorrow night should be extremely exciting because we're getting to play in a such a big former professional stadium (stadium formerly known as Turner Field). Georgia State is a quality team that has a quality coach. We played a great game in Troy a couple of weeks ago that ended in a 1-1 draw. We feel we should have won that game, and both teams are different than the first matchup three weeks ago. It should be an interesting matchup. And then for Sunday we need to play much, much better. We were pretty bad against them in the first matchup. I think given how young of a team we have and coming off the Friday night result [against Georgia State] we thought we could beat them if we didn't play our best, and that's just not the case in this league. Anyone can beat anyone. There's definitely a different attitude and energy about our players, so I expect a completely different effort from us this Sunday versus the effort we gave three weeks ago."

On the short (Friday, Sunday) turnaround:
"Across the league the quality of play is much stronger on Friday's versus Sunday's. The perfect example is Coastal last weekend. Watching them [last Friday] against South they were a different team than when we played them on Sunday. And we were different team last Friday against App as compared to Sunday against Coastal. The short turnaround is a big factor, so our rest and recovery going into the game on Sunday needs to be a main focus."

Soccer Primed and Ready for Final Weekend Matches at Georgia State, Georgia Southern

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Players Mentioned

Sydney Babineaux

Eleonore Freby

Lindsey LaRoche

Karina Valeriano

Troy University Athletics