By Mike DeVader, Reinhardt Director of Athletic Communications & Media
WALESKA, Ga. – In what was a nearly identically to the scenario in the women's game just a couple hours before, Reinhardt survived a pair of shots in the final second to earn its first league victory under new coach Justin Newton, 66-65, over Bluefield (Va.) Saturday evening inside the Brown Athletic Center.
The Eagles improved to 2-2 overall and 1-1 inside the Appalachian Athletic Conference after the wild finish in the narrow victory.
"Just feels good to win, as these guys really deserve it for staying together and believing in each other," Newton said. "To get home at 3:15 a.m. from the Georgia Southern exhibition and to grind out a win says a lot about them. Defensively, it was very good and we did a good job keeping them out of the lane. We had hick-ups, obviously, giving up 17 offensive rebounds and most coming in the second half, but overall it was very good. We had a lot of guys step up when called upon and I'm very proud of them. Hopefully, we can celebrate this and turn our focus on winning the next week… Reinhardt game faithful were awesome again."
Hot shooting from beyond the arc pushed the hometown team to an early seven-point lead just over five minutes into the outing. Just like that, however, the Rams were back within one and the game was back on track for the visitors.
Both clubs would battle back and forth the rest of the half, with multiple ties and lead changes until the Eagles would go on another run to push their advantage to eight (40-32) with just under a minute before halftime.
Reinhardt's six-point spread would get to one possession after a trey on the opening sequence of the second half. Kameron Walters would get his club four-straight points on a jumper and two free throws before Bluefield would hit another shot from deep.
The Eagles would then take a methodical approach to the next few minutes with a strong defensive effort and efficient offense en route to another double-digit cushion at 58-45 with 11 minutes left in regulation.
Over the next six minutes, however, the hometown team would go cold from the field and the Rams would put together an 18-2 spree to move ahead by three tallies at 63-60 with 3:16 left and jump to a four-point lead with 105 ticks left on the scoreboard.
Down by one in the final seconds, Marcus Kirkland drew a foul and connected on both freebies to give Reinhardt the upper-hand once again with 17 seconds remaining. The Rams would get three chances to win in the last seconds of the matchup, but the first one was rejected emphatically by Jervon Walker.
A missed trey and a miscue on a jumper then followed to give the Eagles the nail-biting triumph.
Walters paced the offense with 15 points and eight rebounds. Josh Daniels added 10 points and nine boards as well. Additionally, Chris Rogers was the third Reinhardt player to hit the 10-plus point plateau.
The Eagles were 22-of-53 from the floor (41.5 percent) and hit 17 free throws.
The Bears of Truett-McConnell (Ga.) come to town on Nov. 13 for a conference matchup at 7:30 p.m.
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