Eagles Split in Opening Day of Vette City Classic

Bowling Green, KY - The Reinhardt Eagles Women's Volleyball was the first of the 2022-23 athletic teams to start their official season at the Vette City Classic Tournament. This tournament has some of the top teams from the NAIA participating coming from all around the southeast and beyond.

The first matchup of the season was a tough one going up against Bethel University, which is sitting just outside the NAIA Top 25 rankings. The Eagles would lose three straight games to Bethel 15-25, 17-25, and 12-25. Although this was a rough start for the Eagles, there were some bright spots in this first match of the 2022 season. Allison Selway led the way with 8 kills in the three games. She was followed by Katherine Perrin with 4 kills and Samantha Cramer and Ambria McBride had 2 kills each.

In addition to her 2 kills, Cramer also had 10 assists to lead the way for the Eagles. Alma Vázquez Núñez would follow her with 2 assists and Sarah Sweet would have the only service ace of the three games.

In game one of the Bethel matchup, the Eagles hung tough the first part of the game as Allison Selway got one of her 8 kills to bring the Eagles within one at 9-10. From this point on, the Wildcats of Bethel would pull away and keep the lead the rest of game one. Game two would go about the same way as the Eagles would keep things within a couple of points through the midpoint of the game. In game three, Bethel would pull away early leaving no doubt that they came to win this first match of the tournament.

In the second matchup of the day, the Eagles had the first game nervousness out of the way and they could concentrate on getting the job done. The Eagles dominated all three matches against the Bears of UPike and they even held them to single-digit scoring in the second set. In the first set, the scoring was close until about the midway point and the Eagles started to pull away. Selway laid down a kill with an assist from Cramer giving the Eagles an 11-7 lead and they never looked back eventually winning the set 25-15.

Selway got the scoring going in the second set with an assist from Nunez giving the Eagles off to an early 4-1 lead.  The lead quickly got up to an eight-point lead at 10-2 midway through the second set. Perrin and McBride got going with the kills in the second half of the set and the lead was too much for the Bears to overcome. The Eagles would have their most dominating game of the day winning the second set, 25-7.

In the third and final set, the Eagles made sure to let UPike they were going to take this game to make them 1-1 in the tournament. This was the closest of all three sets and the Eagles actually were losing 9-10 about midway through the set, however, it would not last long as Selway got on a run assisted by Cramer and Nunez. The Bears would pull within one point of the Eagles at 17-16 and then Perrin went on a kill run of her own getting the lead back up to five at 23-18. Claudia Klein would finish off the Bears getting the Eagles the final point winning the set 25-18.

The Eagles do not have a lot of time to rest as they will be back in action early Saturday morning with a matchup with William Carey. After this game, they will have a long wait until they play their final game of the day around 5:30 pm against Blue Mountain. It will be another great day of volleyball with Coach Goodhind's and Coach Colden's talented crew as they get their fall, 2022 season underway.