Eagles Push No. 13 Life (Ga.) to the Brink in Five-Set Thriller

By Mike DeVader, Reinhardt Director of Athletic Communications & Media

Photo Courtesy of Life (Ga.) Sports Information 

MARIETTA, Ga. – The hometown Eagles pushed the Running Eagles of Life (Ga.), the 13^th-ranked squad in the NAIA, to the brink on Saturday afternoon as Reinhardt fell in five sets to the hosts of the Running Eagles Classic, 3-2 – 19-25,25-19,18-25,26-24,13-15.

The Eagles have now lost back-to-back outings (1-2) but have taken positive steps in each defeat.

"Today was a great day to see the fight our team has," head coach CJ Shearer said. "There was never a moment in the match where they hung their heads or let up; they just played. We absolutely need to be more consistent and clean up in a lot of areas, but maximum effort was there, and they played free in a tight match against a very good program… There's not much more I can ask for.

"Everything goes to God, and we look forward to a new day."

Victor Pacheco had a career-best performance against the Running Eagles on their own floor, as the freshman connected on an astounding hitting percentage of .476, which included 26 kills in 42 attempts.

Also setting an individual-high on the scoresheet was Ricardo Mujica with 48 assists (out of 52 total).

Life was able to open the morning match with a victory in set one (25-19) thanks to nine kills and eight errors by Reinhardt – resulting in a .045 hitting percentage. The visiting Eagles were able to bounce right back and tie the score at 1-1 overall after flipping the script and hitting .500 in game two.

Coincidentally, the trend would continue into the third stanza as the advantage bounced back to the Running Eagles after they hit a combined .300 in set three compared to .067 by the hometown squad (10 errors). Just as they did before, however, Reinhardt looked like a different group in the fourth game – hitting .400 with 18 scores – and took Life to a deciding set despite the Running Eagles posting their match-best mark of .345.

The fifth-and-final stanza went down to the wire as Life was forced into seven miscues (in a first-to-15 set). The Eagles used those errors to jump out to a 2-0 lead, but the Running Eagles turned it around to net four-straight points, and six of the next seven tallies, to move ahead, 6-3. The remainder of the match would get even tighter, however, as a combination of strong offense and more miscues by Life kept the contest neck-and-neck.

The hometown squad would get back within one point on three occasions late – most notably at 14-13 following an ace by Matthew Corrales – but after multiple timeouts, Corrales' next serve went into the net to end the non-conference clash at 15-13.

Corrales finished with 14 kills and eight digs in the loss. Chase Cross was also in double-figure scoring with 10 kills and eight digs as well.

Nicolas Castro led the way in defensive receptions with nine.

In total, Reinhardt hit .244 in the match.

Next up on the schedule is the home opener inside the Brown Athletic Center – against NCAA Division II Erskine (S.C.) – on Jan. 27 at 7 p.m. 

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