Sports Editor

First you start the season without your star returning player, then, with a young club to begin with, you have to fight your way through early season injuries and to top it all off a team up and cancels on you.

Such are the trials Troy State Lady Trojans’ head coach Jerry Hester has had to endure so far this season. He’s kept his wits about him however and hopes that once he can utilize all his players at full speed and top health the Lady Trojans (3-5) can do some damage in the Trans America Athletic Conference.

"It’s been a what’s going to happen next type thing with all the injuries and all of the other things going wrong," Hester said. "It’s the type of things that frustrate coaches because we really don’t have any control over the situation. It really looks like it’s our turn to have the bad luck.

"You like to look at it and say if we hadn’t had such poor luck we might be 7-1 right now," he continued. "We’ve been in just about every game we’ve played, but sometimes we just didn’t have the horses."

Topping the list at the moment is the news that Coppin State has been forced to cancel their December 28 matchup with the Lady Trojans. Looking at it from one perspective you might say that this is a good thing. It gives a team that currently has three of their best players hobbled by injuries more time to recoup, but Hester would rather just keep playing.

"If you’re looking for a silver lining that would be one of the only positives in it," Hester said. "Hopefully we will have most of our injured players back before the game on the 30th.

It’s just not an ideal situation. We really wanted to get those games under our belt so we could get a little more experience and go strong into conference play."

"We wanted to play our full compliment of games, and now we likely won’t be able to do that," he continued. "We are trying to see if anyone else wants to play, but this is a bad time of year to be looking for games."

There is a maximum of 27 games that a team may schedule during their regular season and with the cancelation Troy State now must settle for 26.

The scheduling error was a mistake that might have cost Coppin State head coach Jennie Hall her job as it was announced yesterday that she had resigned her position.

As for the Lady Trojans now they will take their extended Christmas break getting ready for Texas-Pan American a team that they beat on the road earlier in the season 96-90 in overtime.

For that game TSU is hoping to see Ellis make her return. The senior post player is supposed to have her cast taken off her leg Thursday Dec. 16 and get it looked at by a doctor. Hopes are high that she will get the green light, but nothing is certain yet.

Abby Boone will receive an MRI on her knee Dec. 27 to see how extensive her injury might be and Rebekah Waters is still nursing a severe sprained ankle, but could be ready to go after the more than two-week break.