Limestone makes pilgrimage to face Eagles seeking first win at Mossy Creek

Carson-Newman Baseball Game Notes

JEFFERSON CITY, Tenn. – Carson-Newman will look for its seventh win in as many tries at the Silver Diamond Baseball Complex against Limestone Tuesday afternoon with a 3 p.m. first pitch scheduled for the non-conference tilt.

The Eagles took two out of three games against Coker over the weekend but went 2-2 overall last week in what the Eagle skipper called a mental lapse.

"We come back Monday and we go to work," Carson-Newman coach Tom Griffin said. "We are going to correct some of the things and we are going to get the mindset back to where we need to be on every pitch."

Carson-Newman (18-13) and Limestone (13-21) tangle for the 24th time since the 1988 campaign with the Saints holding a 12-11 edge.

Tuesday will be the seventh occasion that the two programs have met at Mossy Creek. The Eagles have won all six times at the Silver Diamond Baseball Complex since the two sides began playing in the Volunteer State in 2006.

10 of the first 11 meetings came in Gaffney, S.C. with the first meeting coming in Florida on March 9, 1988.

In the six games at the SDBC, the Saints have failed to score more than four runs five times with the lone exception coming on Feb. 17, 2009 in an 11-10 C-N victory in 10 innings. Corey Lamson delivered the walk-off double to right field scoring Tyler Wynn in the contest.

Limestone picked up a 5-4 win in Gaffney in the 2016 season opener for the Eagles as the Saints won for the seventh straight time on its home field against C-N. Carson-Newman took a 4-2 lead at stretch time as Dillon Palencia doubled in a pair in the seventh and a throwing error allowed the winning run to score in the eighth.

Limestone enters the midweek affair having lost five of its last seven contests and have a 2-8 record in road games. The lone road victories came at Barton on March 5 (5-3) and at King (Tenn.) on March 26 (7-6). With a 4-11 record in Conference Carolinas, the Saints are tied for seventh out of 10 clubs.

The pitching staff has been amongst the least effective in the country this season. A cumulative earned run average of 7.42 ranks 223rd nationally while allowing 5.4 walks per nine innings on the season, 228th in Division II. The Saints strike out just 6.3 batters per nine innings of work ranking 189th in the country.

At the plate, Limestone is slightly more efficient scoring 184 runs on the year, ranking in the top 75 at the D2 level. The Saints are 42nd in the United States with 305 total hits on the year and 19th in triples with 12. Garrett Lowery is second among Division II players with eight three-baggers on the year.

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.

- CN -