RU Women's Basketball First Round Game Set for Friday Night
Great Falls, Mont. - Our Reinhardt Eagles will be headed to the first round of the NAIA Women's Basketball National Championship Tournament this Friday evening. The team left Georgia on Tuesday and arrived late Tuesday evening in Great Falls, Montana. The University of Providence is hosting the four-team first-round bracket with the winner moving on to the round of sixteen in the National Tournament. The four teams involved are The University of Providence (host school), Arizona Christian, Eastern Oregon, and Reinhardt Eagles.
Reinhardt will play the second game of the evening on Friday night versus Arizona Christian which will be at 9 pm EST. The live stream link for both games is: https://www.youtube.com/@universityofprovidenceargo2651
Live stats of the game can be seen here: https://reinhardteagles.com/sports/wbkb/2023-24/boxscores/20240315_3it8.xml
Reinhardt is coming off a remarkable regular season, which was one of the best in the program's history. Led by a solid starting five of Ashley Woodroffe, Julia Craft, Tarrah Gibson, Avanna Preston, and Maria Sanchez Ponce - Reinhardt can beat anyone on any given night. They have solid substitutes coming off the bench like graduate student, Ty Williams, and veteran Eagles Kiara Simpson and Marlie Townley. When the team is playing well, they are tough to stop and can easily jump out to a big lead if you are not careful. But, late season injury to guard Sanchez Ponce put the Eagles in a tough spot in the final two weeks of the regular season. They lost 2 of 3 in those final weeks after going the season undefeated to that point. They ended the regular season with a 24-2 record going into the AAC tournament and they made it to the final game where they faced a resurgent University of Pikeville team. It took two overtimes and Sanchez Ponce fouling out for the Bears of Pikeville to take out the Eagles in the end.
Although they do not have any conference titles/championships after having a great season, their goals are still in front of them. The Eagles have a good shot to make it out of this Montana bracket to move on to the round of 16. Tune in on Friday to watch the Eagles take on Arizona Christian and try to move on to the second round played on Saturday. The two winners on Friday will face each other on Saturday with the winner moving on to the next round. Go Eagles and get it done!
Weekend Tournament Game Schedule
3/15 - Providence vs Eastern Oregon: 7 pm (EST)
3/15 - Reinhardt vs Arizona Christian: 9 pm (EST)
3/16 - Winner vs Winner: 7 pm (EST)
For tournament updates and other information, please see the link to the NAIA's coverage:
https://www.naia.org/sports/wbkb/2023-24/Releases/Qualifiers