TROY INVITATIONAL TOURNAMENT HEADQUARTERS

TROY – Terry Gamble and the Jacksonville State volleyball team will return to the court this weekend in another in-state tournament at rival Troy, where the Gamecocks will play Alabama A&M on Thursday and a pair of matches on Friday.
 
The Gamecocks (0-4) will look to get in the win column after a tough opening weekend in a tough UAB/Samford Intercollegiate field last week in Birmingham. They will face similar challenges this week in a non-traditional Thursday-Friday Tournament in Trojan Arena.
 
The first match will pit JSU against AAMU (1-3) at 4:30 p.m. on Thursday before a pair of Friday matches wraps up the weekend. The Gamecocks will see Mercer at 12 p.m. before concluding play at the Troy Invitational against the host Trojans at 7 p.m.
 
In his first weekend at the helm of the Gamecocks, Gamble did see some promising things from his young roster and feels there are thing to build on as he continues the rebuilding process of Gamecock Volleyball.
 
"It was one of those weekends where we knew we had a lot of learning to do," Gamble said. "We are learning about them and they are learning about us as coaches. Would I have loved to have won some matches? Yes, but we are rebuilding. We are going to get better as we go, but it's going to take some time to rebuild the program to where it was and where I want it to be."
 
Despite the outcomes, Gamble was very pleased with the effort from his team, one that saw four freshman play significant time to open their collegiate careers. The downside of the non-traditional event at Troy is that there wasn't a lot of time to work on those areas before hitting the road again.
 
"They gave me everything they had and they came back with a great attitude on Monday," he added. "We saw some things that we need to work on, but unfortunately we leave for Troy today. We only have two days to start working on those. That's good and bad. It's bad that we have only two days to work on those things but good that we get to jump right back out there in another match and forget about last week."
 
The Troy Invitational field is one the Gamecocks have had success against in the past. JSU leads the all-time series with all three foes, including an 11-8 advantage over the Trojans. JSU won the only previous meeting with AAMU and is 9-7 all-time against Mercer.
 
"A couple of the matchups may be better for us this weekend but Troy is really good," Gamble said. "I've watched video on all three teams and Troy is going to be a really tough matchup for us. They remind me a lot of Samford, who is really fast and really quick."