Carson-Newman Baseball Game Notes
JEFFERSON CITY, Tenn. – With three consecutive wins under their belt, the Carson-Newman Eagles (12-13, 7-11 South Atlantic Conference) look to continue their winning ways with a three-game home series against the Coker Cobras this weekend at the Silver Diamond Baseball Complex. Saturday will feature a doubleheader beginning with a noon first pitch while the series will wrap-up Sunday at 1 p.m.
The Eagles have seen their team batting average raise almost 30 percentage points to .280 after scoring 30 runs in a pair of midweek victories over the Cedarville Yellow Jackets.
"Confidence has a lot to do with it," Carson-Newman coach Tom Griffin said. "One at-bat can build onto the next one both good and bad. Fortunately they've had some good at-bats for them to build on. During one stretch there were a lot of hard hit balls. We do a quality at-bat chart. We had good, quality at-bats, but balls were getting hit right to people which is the game of baseball. Now some of the balls are falling in."
This weekend's opponent, Coker, has the highest earned run average in the conference at 7.40, almost a full run higher than the next team. The Cobras have struck out the fewest batters in the league, 125, while allowing the most hits, 271, of any team in the league.
Conversely, the Cobras have scored the fewest runs in the SAC this year at 110 while ranking second-to-last in hits, 198, and walks, 78.
"Bottom line is we have to be good, play our game, worry about what we do," Griffin said. "None of that matters as far as earned run averages or anything. Coker is a well-coached team. Coach Schmotzer had them in the World Series a couple years ago. Some of those guys are still there. They know how to win and how to compete."
Coker two out of three games in Hartsville, S.C. in 2014 marking the first time that the programs have ever squared off on the diamond. The Cobras took game one 9-3 as the Eagles stranded 12 runners on base and had just one hit in 17 at-bats with a runner on base and 0-for-10 with runners in scoring position.
Carson-Newman captured the second game of the series 7-6 as Bo Ausmus (Jefferson City, Tenn.) homered in the sixth inning during a 2-for-5 day.
The Eagles led 4-1 heading to bottom of the seventh inning in the series finale but the Cobras scored four runs to walk-off with a series victory. Two walks and an error extended the game to allow the home club to steal a win.
All three games will have a video and an audio live stream by visiting cneagles.com/live 10 minutes prior to the first pitch of each contest courtesy of the Eagle Sports Network.
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