Volleyball extends winning streak

Last week, the Troy volleyball team extended its conference-high winning streak to six with two wins in Ruston, Louisiana, against Louisiana Tech, the Sun Belt’s newest member. The Trojans’ Friday win marked Troy’s first victory over the Bulldogs in their brief matchup history, as their last meeting was over 20 years ago.

As the Sun Belt is halfway through its conference schedule, a logjam remains at the top of the standings, with three teams at 7-1: Troy, App State and Arkansas State. However, that is one less than the week before, as Georgia Southern fell to Arkansas State this weekend.

Troy stands alone atop the West division standings, with all seven of its wins coming in-division, while Arkansas State has only five. Troy has only two division series left, against South Alabama and Arkansas State, before finishing conference play with two cross-divisional series against Coastal Carolina and App State.

Divisions matter in Sun Belt volleyball because of the championship bracket design. Teams are seeded by their division, with the top five teams in each division qualifying. The fourth and fifth seeds play in the first round to join the top three seeds from each division in the quarterfinals. If Troy can claim the West’s No. 1 seed, it will only have to beat a fourth or fifth seed to reach the semifinals, which would be the furthest it’s been in years.

The Friday match against Louisiana Tech saw the Bulldogs steal the first and only set of the weekend, 26-24, in the tightest set of the weekend, which saw 11 ties and five lead changes. Kylie Rodriguez led the Bulldogs with 12 kills and three block assists.

For the Trojans, four players recorded double-digit kills for the first time all season. Olivia Kwiatkowski led the team in kills for the first time all season with 14, while also serving three aces for the third consecutive match. The Trojans' starting setter, Madison Marx, also recorded a season-high 29 assists.

Saturday’s match saw the Trojans sweep their competition, hitting over .300 for the first time in a month. Isa Ruether led the way with a career-high .563 hitting percentage for 11 kills. Kalina Calvillo and Ashlynn Axtell were the other main offensive threats, with 25 and 18 kills, respectively, over the two matches.

The Trojans are still excelling from the service line, now up to third in the country in aces per set as a team. Calvillo, Kwiatkowski and Marx spearheaded the charge for the Trojans this weekend,combining for 12 of the team's 19 aces. These three have the most aces for the team in the season as well.

South Alabama heads to Troy for the rivalry series on Thursday at 6 p.m. and Friday at 6 p.m. in Trojan Arena. If Troy can continue to stack wins against this weekend, it could set up a division-deciding series against Arkansas State the following weekend.