Eagles Light Up the Scoreboard Against Milligan

Waleska, GA - RU Eagles Basketball had a second-half surge coming from behind to beat a talented Milligan Buffaloes team, 105-101. It was the largest output of scoring for the Eagles this season, but more importantly - it was a Big Win in the AAC column.

Several Eagles had very good nights offensively and every point was needed in this shootout.  Nate Jones, who has been on a hot streak lately, refused to let the Eagles go out without a fight. Jones had 30 points to lead the Eagles as he had done the past few games. He has definitely shown that he can be the team leader for Coach Newton's squad and his first-half three-point shooting kept the Eagles in striking distance when the game had a feeling like the Buffaloes were going to run away with the game.

In the first ten minutes of the first half, Reinhardt would start very cold shooting the ball - which allowed Milligan to get as high as a twenty-one-point lead. This season, Reinhardt has not had a game where they came back from this much of a deficit. The Eagles are showing signs of gelling as a team after having to replace several key members graduating from last year's squad.  Jones, Tyler Smith, Nate Louis, and a few others will have to show everyone that they can do it.

Tyler Smith was the second-leading scorer in the game with twenty points.  Jones and Smith contributed nearly half of the Eagles' points in this game.  Nate Louis, Brasen James, and Tucker Lowe rounded out the Top 25 for the Eagles.  Louis had 19, James 18, and Tucker Lowe ended up scoring 10 points.

Despite the cold start, the Eagles had very impressive shooting percentages at the end of the game. As a team, the Eagles were 30 of 42 from the field shooting 51.7% and they were just under 54% from behind the three-point arch. From the free-throw line, the Eagles shot just under 74% at 31-42.

In the game, the Eagles would let the Buffaloes extend a lead as high as 21 points early in the game.  Reinhardt would slowly chip away at this lead getting it down to just 57-46 at the halftime break and it would take all the way to around the 14-minute mark before they would catch the Buffaloes. From this point on in the game, both teams would trade leads several times and neither team could pull away until the very end of the game.  In the final minute, the Eagles were able to hang on to their slight lead and pick up this much-needed win.

Next up for the Eagles will be a road game with Johnson University (TN) on Wednesday evening and then back home on Saturday with another AAC matchup at home against Bluefield.