TROY, Ala.– Georgia Southern volleyball (19-7, 9-6 Sun Belt) nearly pulled off a reverse sweep at Troy (14-11, 12-3 SBC) but ultimately fell in five sets on Thursday.
"Tough result tonight. We did a lot of really nice things throughout stretches and showed great resiliency being down 0-2 on the road," head coach
Chad Willis said. "Proud of the fight, we just need to play cleaner in some of those moments."
Despite leading 15-9 at one point, the Trojans used a 7-1 run to take the lead, and in forcing extra points, pulled out a 26-24 win.
Megan Vickery recorded four of her 12 total blocks in the first frame.
Troy took an early lead and never looked back in the second set, recovering from the block party to win 25-19 in the frame. The Eagles had trouble attacking in the second set.
GS flipped the script in sets three and four, as the attacking and net presence started to come back. The Eagles won 25-16 and 25-18, and Vickery stretched her block total to 12, a new career-high.
Jillian Gray also joined her in the block parade, recording a career-best nine.
While the Eagles recorded the first point in the decisive fifth set, Troy stormed to a 7-0 run and ran with it, winning 15-7 and the match 3-2.
Vickery's 12 blocks were a match-high and season-high for any Eagle, while
Paige Powers, who recorded her 500th kill in the match, notched 11 to lead the way. Gray had nine blocks, and
Ally Barnhart filled the stat sheet with nine kills, three blocks and seven digs.
The Eagles will play the Trojans again for the season finale on Friday at 5:00 p.m. eastern looking for their 20th win of the season.