Georgia Southern’s Senior night and the last regular season match of the season was held on Friday for the woman’s volleyball team. The Eagles had a lot to play for, especially with the Sun Belt Championship looming ahead of them. Fortunately, the team came ready to play and were able to record a win against the Troy Trojans in four sets. The final scoring was 29-31, 25-16, 25-11, 28-26 in favor of Southern.

“Our seniors work so hard every practice, every game, every moment,” said redshirt-junior Alex Beecher. “We’re so close to them. We really wanted this for them. Troy’s a great team so we knew we had to play really well. I definitely think their leadership pushed us through to get that win.”

“These kids pour everything they got into it,” said Head Coach Dustin Wood. “[Beecher] should be a senior, but she has one more year so I think it kind of hit her too. It’s a good thing and it’s nice to have them go out with the last win in the regular season. They’re always going to remember that one. We’re proud of them.”

Last weekend, Beecher became Southern’s all-time leader in digs. She’s had a record-breaking career and, because of an injury last season, she will return next year to play again.

Beecher’s 23 digs against Troy led the team. She was followed by her teammate redshirt-junior Katie Bange who recorded 9 digs and 35 assists on the night. Redshirt-sophomore Megan Chevalier led the team in kills with 12 against Troy. Sophomore Cathrine Murray followed with 11 kills as freshman Lauren Reichard and freshman Stephanie Spencer each earned 9 kills and 8 kills, respectively.

“Each week, we get better and better,” Wood said. “I feel the rest of the teams have peaked. (I think I’m right about that.) We just got to clean up, a little bit, and we’ll be fine. We’re hoping that next Friday night, we bring it all together. I feel that we can and it’s a good chance that it’ll happen if we have a good week.”

“Something we struggle with is errors or a random part of our game will be off,” said Beecher. “But I thought, at all times, we had everything going. Our hitters were hitting well, we were blocking well; our serving could have been better, but besides that, our digging, our setting, it was all working tonight which was something that helped us a lot.”

“To win a game, you have to have all six players functioning at all times. [Our freshmen are] young so, at times, it’s hard for them to stay focused. I think tonight, they were in the game. They’ve been like that the past few games. You can tell it’s all coming together. When they play well, we all play well.”

No. 1 seed Arkansas State put a pin on their season by sweeping App State on Thursday. This makes them the opponents of the Eagles on Friday. The two teams have already played twice this season. Arkansas State got the upper-hand on the Eagles in both matches. This final rematch of the 2015 season will pit the teams against each other for a third time, and in a single elimination tournament format, one team will be ending their season on that Friday.

“If we can have everything going, focus in on every single point, we can compete with anybody and we definitely think we can take that win,” Beecher said.

“We’re excited to have an opportunity to win a championship on our home floor,” said Wood. “That’s our goal and we need three wins. It’s a great opportunity.”

Friday, Nov. 20 will be the start of the Sun Belt Championship. Southern will compete against Arkansas State in match four on the day at 7:30 p.m. This will be the last match of the season for one team, but the gateway to a tournament winner for the other. Matches will continue through Saturday until a champion is decided on that Sunday.