By Lindsey Schoewe
Staff Writer
Fresh off a straight set home opener win over Georgia Southern, Troy volleyball (3-4) traveled to Auburn last week for the Active Ankle Challenge Tournament.
The Trojans beat Mercer, the second match of the tournament, but fell to Green Bay and Auburn.
Troy played Green Bay on Thursday losing 3-1 (25-20, 29-31, 23-25, 19-25) but defeated Mercer in a five set shootout 3-2 (18-25, 25-18, 25-17, 22-25, 15-8).
Junior outside hitter Kayla Pickart led the team with 13 kills against Mercer while three other Trojans recorded double digit kills.
Senior setter Alexandra Alexander finished the match with 28 assists and 20 digs, while senior libero Courtney Cohen recorded 22 digs.
After the Friday match against Auburn that Troy lost 3-1 (25-21, 15-25, 13-25, 22-25), Cohen is only 82 digs shy of breaking the career dig school record.
“I thought that the competition we faced was really good,” Troy head coach Sonny Kirkpatrick said. “I also think that we need to do a better job with our focus and intensity level. When we do the things that we work on in practice, we win games and matches.”
Kirkpatrick stressed that when his team fails to focus it is only an average team, and they are not here to be an average team.
When asked who the top performers were for the tournament, Kirkpatrick couldn’t come up with any names.
“Every player, at some point, performed at a high level. We are only concerned about how the team does.”
The Trojans next travel to Georgia to play in the Georgia Tech Courtyard Classic this weekend.
The first test of this week will be when Troy faces Connecticut on Friday at 3:30 p.m. while Georgia Tech and St. John’s University will be set to take on the Trojans on Saturday.
There were many lessons learned from the tournament in Auburn that the Trojans can work on as they prepare for this weekend road trip to Atlanta.
“The main thing that we will be concentrating on is our focus level,” Kirkpatrick said. “When we are focused, I think that we’re a tough team to beat. Going into this weekend, we really need to have to make sure that we are aware of our game plans and executing them.”
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