TROY, Ala. ? The South Alabama volleyball team struggled handling Troy’s serving Monday night and dropped a 3-1 decision to the Trojans at Trojan Arena.

With the win, Troy improved to 10-9 on the season and 1-2 in the Sun Belt.  The Jags (5-8, 0-3 SBC) will continue Sun Belt Conference play this weekend when they travel to “The Sunshine State” to take on Florida Atlantic on Friday and Florida International on Saturday.

USA placed three players in double figures in the kill department in the loss; Jenna Swilley (15), Brittany Blackwelder (13) and Hristina Markova (10).  Aubre Smith led the Trojans in that same category with 13 of her own. 

The key stat of the game was in the serving department where the Trojans recorded 13 aces compared to just two from South Alabama.  Four players ended the match with at least two aces, including four each from Megan Washlow and Jean McCarthy.

GAME ONE: Troy 30, South Alabama 27

Trailing by two early on in game one, the Trojans went on a 10-2 spurt over the next several points to take their first lead of the night.  The Troy run was aided by four Jaguar attack errors.  Smith put the Trojans up 13-7 with a kill.  After the Jags trimmed the deficit to three (15-12) on the strength of two kills each from Blackwelder and Juliana Pallamin de Almeida, Troy again pushed across four unanswered points, the last two coming on a pair of aces from Washlow.  South Alabama answered right back with a run of its own, this one an 8-1 spurt that was capped off by a Markova kill.  The two went back and forth for much of the remainder of game one until with USA trailing 28-27, Troy captured the final two points to take the opener 30-27.

GAME TWO: South Alabama 30, Troy 25

In game two, the Trojans took the lead from the outset, picking up the first four points of the game.  USA was able to battle back and cut the lead to one on several occasions for much of the way.  Troy took its largest lead of the game at 16-11 after a Jag setting error, but South Alabama battled back and finally claimed its first lead of the second game at 21-19 after back-to-back Trojan attack errors.  South Alabama continued to push points across and Markova gave the Jags their largest lead at six 27-21 with another kill, one of her three during the scoring spurt for USA.  Taylor Irvin sealed the Jaguar 30-25 victory when she painted a shot down the line.

GAME THREE: Troy 30, South Alabama 19

South Alabama claimed the first point of game three, but the Jags then saw Troy reel off the next seven points, three of which coming off the serve of McCarthy.  The Jags were unable to recover in game three and trailed by as many as 11 on four occasions, including the final margin of 30-19.  USA didn’t help its cause any in game three as it hit just .058.

GAME FOUR: Troy 30, South Alabama 13

With the Jags leading by one at 9-8 in game three, Troy grabbed the lead with five consecutive points.  USA was able to cut the lead to 12-11 after a Blackwelder kill and a combined block assist with Almeida, but the Trojans went on to take 18 of the final 20 points of the contest en route to the 30-13 victory.