Eagles Drop Season Opener Against #22 Georgia Gwinnett

Waleska, GA - Reinhardt Men's Soccer got their season underway on Wednesday evening as they welcomed the Grizzlies of Georgia Gwinnett to Ken White Field. It was a tough season opener as Georgia Gwinnett was coming in ranked #22 in the country and the Eagles are a little banged up in a few positions. Coach Johnson was missing three players from his first team lineup, however, this would not stop the Eagles from battling all night.

The game started off with the Grizzlies controlling the game most of the first half, but the Eagles would have a few transition attacks that would threaten the Grizzlies' defense. Blake White, Rafael Pais, and Nathan Seery would help create multiple attacks on Georgia Gwinnett in the first half after the defense stopped the heavy attacks. Goalkeeper, Niko Tzevelekos, had a really good first half as he would fight off several shot attempts by the Grizzlies. The first goal would come on an unlucky deflection from an Eagle defender from a shot attempt from Georgia Gwinnett. The play was defended well, but the ball just took a weird deflection which Tzevelekos could do little about. This put Gwinnett up 1-0 early in the game.

The second goal would not come until the thirty-seventh minute of the first half when the Grizzlies punched on past the Eagles' defense. Gwinnett was pressing hard most of the first half which made Reinhardt have to play heavy defense in their half of the field.  The Eagles were able to get one back on a corner kick from Pais to Blake White getting the Eagles back into the game 2-1 just before the halftime break.

In the second half, the Grizzlies would keep their attacks going - but the Tzevelekos and the Eagles defense would hold them off time after time. About ten minutes into the first half, a cross in from the left side of the attack found the foot of Andres Jorquera to put a shot on goal. The shot narrowly missed the left bottom corner of the goal which would have tied the game.

The Eagles did not back down and kept holding off the Grizzlies' attacks for the majority of the second half. The Eagles would quickly move the ball out to the wings getting transition attacks, however, they could not get the final connection to happen in the final attacking third.  The Eagles seemed to be on the verge of tieing the game, however, a late goal in the eighty-fifth minute sealed the game for the Eagles.  A backdoor pass was able to sneak just inside the Eagles' left fullbacks inside hitting a Grizzly in stride to get him one on one with Tzevelekos. Despite the effort by Tzevelekos, the ball squeezed just under him to trickle into the goal and put the writing on the wall for the game.

The Eagles did try to push for a final goal, however, it was not meant to be in this game and the Eagles would take the early season loss, 1-3.  Tzevelekos had a pretty good night in goal getting 5 saves on 8 shots from the Grizzles. The Eagles' attack was only able to get six shots total in the game so this number will need to increase as the season progresses.

The Eagles will have a few days including the weekend to prepare for Life University, which comes in for an evening match on Monday, August 29th, at 7:30 pm at Ken White Field.