Carson-Newman Baseball Game Notes
JEFFERSON CITY, Tenn. – The Carson-Newman Eagles (15-14, 9-12 South Atlantic Conference) host a league team at the Silver Diamond Baseball Complex for the final time in 2015 when the Lenoir-Rhyne Bears (20-13, 8-10 SAC) come to Mossy Creek for a weekend series. Game one is scheduled for 2 p.m. Friday with the series concluding with a doubleheader slated to begin at noon on Saturday.
Carson-Newman has won six of its last seven games including its first extra-inning victory in three tries this year at King (Tenn.) on Tuesday as the pitching staff allowed 15 hits, but stranded 11 runners in the comeback win.
"We were very pleased with our players on how they battled and how they played mentally," Carson-Newman coach Tom Griffin said. "We thought throughout the course of the game that they were very relaxed and that's a credit to our seniors and leaders."
The final homestand of the year for the Eagles has importance for the conference tournament that places the top-eight teams in the conference. Carson-Newman is holding onto eighth place while Lenoir-Rhyne is just above the Eagles in seventh.
"All we can do is worry about today's practice," Griffin said. "We don't want to get too far ahead of ourselves. We didn't want to do that when we were playing well. We didn't want to do that when things weren't going well. We aren't going to change that mentality of just take care of today. When we say take care of today, we truly mean, wake up with purpose and passion."
The Bears have won four of their last six SAC games after snapping a seven-game conference losing streak. Lenoir-Rhyne has the reigning SAC Player of the Year in outfielder and pitcher Ivan Vietiez who is hitting .276 with four home runs and 30 RBI while having a 4-3 record with a 4.24 earned run average.
"For four years he's been a solid two-way guy," Griffin said. "He's probably one of the top players in our league and they are playing very well. They were red-hot in the beginning of the year. They're numbers are good. They are playing for something as well."
Lenoir-Rhyne's pitching staff leads the SAC with 299 strikeouts as a team this year while Friday's expected starting pitcher Thomas St. Clair is second in the league with 69 punch outs.
At the plate, the Bears have struck out the most times at 230 while walking the third-most times at 134. Four players rank in the top 16 in the conference in RBI led by 33 from Ryan Perkins. Brantley Rumford, a preseason first team All-SAC second basemen, is fourth in the league with 50 hits.
Carson-Newman leads the all-time series 46-29 despite Lenoir-Rhyne taking two of three games in 2014. The Bears captured game one 9-6 and game two 4-2 before the Eagles salvaged game three with an 8-7 victory. In Carson-Newman's last at-bat, Bryan Everhart (Greeneville, Tenn.) launched a 3-2, two-out fastball over the leftfield wall to give the Eagles the decisive advantage in the game.
All three games will be broadcast in high definition courtesy of the Eagle Sports Network by visiting cneagles.com/live.
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