Carson-Newman Baseball Game Notes
JEFFERSON CITY, Tenn. – Lee makes the short trip from Cleveland, Tenn. to Mossy Creek for a midweek battle against Carson-Newman with a 2 p.m. first pitch at the Silver Diamond Baseball Complex Tuesday afternoon.
The Eagles (13-5) are riding a 10-game winning streak and have won 13 of 14 games as the Flames (8-10) enter the Tuesday outing losing nine of the last 12 times they have been on the field.
Tuesday marks the 17th meeting between Carson-Newman and Lee with it just being the fourth time the two sides have met in the last decade. The Eagles hold the series lead at 9-7 but the Flames have won four the last five games.
On March 12, 2015 Lee fell behind 6-2 before scoring two runs in the seventh and three in the ninth inning to earn a 7-6 victory. Greg Jones drove in three runs while finishing a single shy of the cycle.
Lee finished the 2015 season with a 39-19-1 record and began the 2016 campaign ranked 25th in the Perfect Game National Poll. The Flames are picked to finish seventh in the Gulf South Conference and were preseason No. 10 in the preseason regional poll.
The Flames began the year with a 5-1 record but have gone 3-9 since a victory over Tiffin on Feb. 14. With a 2-7 record in GSC play, Lee is 10th out of 12 teams in the league standings.
On the road this season, coach Mark Brew's group is 1-5 with the lone win in Cleveland, Miss. in the first game against Delta State, a 17-13 decision.
Extra-base hits have been a driving force for the Flames this season. As a unit, they rank 15th in Division II with 21 home runs while ranking 17th with 44 doubles on the year. The unit has been prone to hitting into double plays as they have hit into 20 twin-killings already this season, the second-most in the nation.
The team's ERA of 5.86 is 161st out of 252 teams in the country as the pitching staff yields an average of 9.5 hits per contest. In a game against Delta State on Feb. 27, the Flames' pitching staff gave up seven home runs in a 17-13 win, the second-most homers allowed in a D2 game this year.
Redshirt-senior first baseman Ben Holland has paced the offensive output with a .426 batting while ranking second in the country on the year with 10 home runs. Of his 26 hits on the year, 18 have been for extra bases as his 64 total bases rank third at Division II.
The game will feature an audio and a video stream on cneagles.com/live beginning at 1:50 with the Carson-Newman baseball pregame warm-up show on the Eagle Sports Network.
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