JEFFERSON CITY, Tenn. – Carson-Newman takes a season-long six-game winning streak into a three-game South Atlantic Conference weekend series against Lenoir-Rhyne starting on Friday at 2 p.m. and ending on Saturday with a twin-bill on Saturday at noon from the Silver Diamond Baseball Complex.
"Three weeks ago I stopped looking at any scores," Carson-Newman coach Tom Griffin said. "I only know our record. We are not worrying about anybody else because a lot of times as an Irish-Italian you worry about everything. One of the things in my growth as a coach is that I can't control what other people do. I have to worry about what our team does and prepare as a staff to get our kids ready."
Since 1990, the two programs have played 87 times with Carson-Newman (16-16, 5-7) holding a 56-31 advantage overall that includes a 33-8 mark in games played at the Silver Diamond Baseball Complex.
There have been 13 three-game sets played at Mossy Creek since 1990 as the Eagles have won 11 of them, with seven sweeps. C-N has won seven straight home series, five of which were sweeps, over the Bears since Lenoir-Rhyne (18-13, 4-8) came to town in 2002 and won two out of three games. The only other time the Bears won a series at the SDBC came in 1995.
In 2016, the two clubs did not meet due to the new SAC scheduling rules as C-N took two out of three games on March 27-28, 2015 at home. The Bears took the first game before the combination of Vince Apicella and Jamie Miller hurled 14 2/3 innings striking out 18 and allowing just eight hits as Carson-Newman's starters.
Lenoir-Rhyne reels in a seventh-place projection after concluding last season in sixth. The Bears need to replace second-team All-SAC shortstop Matthew De La Rosa who finished second in the league in RBIs with 61. The only player to earn preseason credentials was reliever Tad Ratliff who had a 1.69 earned run average in 26 2/3 innings pitched.
The Bears came out of the gates in 2017 on fire winning each of their first nine games of the year. The month of March has flipped the season as the club is just 5-10 including a 2-7 mark in league play. After hitting .345 in February, L-R has posted a .263 batting average while seeing its average runs per game dip from 9.9 in February to 4.9 in March.
The pitching staff has remained consistent from month-to-month despite allowing one more per game in March. The hurlers are ranked third in the nation in strikeouts per nine innings at 10.9 on average. Conversely, the staff is 233rd out of 259 teams with 5.6 walks per nine innings. The defense behind the flamethrowers ranks seventh in the conference with a .954 fielding percentage.
Thomas St. Clair has been the NCBWA's Region Pitcher of the Week twice this season posting 17 strikeouts at Anderson on Feb. 24 and 16 punch outs against Catawba on March 4. In his last three outings, the right-hander has given up 12 runs, six earned while walking nine and yielding 20 hits. Only Marshall Kasowski at West Texas A&M has more strikeouts nationally than St. Clair's 79. The senior pitched against the Eagles on March 27, 2015 going six innings recording 10 K's allowing four runs, five hits and four walks.
Marcus Shoemaker is the team's leader offensively ranking second in the league with a .427 batting average. The outfielder ranks 14th in the country with 86 total bases and third in Division II with 56 total hits. His 15 doubles are good for third across the States. Shoemaker has 21 multi-hit games this season and started the year with a 27-game hitting streak. He has been held hitless in two of the last four games going 3-for-19 in that stretch.
The Eagle Sports Network will be posted up in the press box to bring fans the audio and video streams on cneagles.com/live starting 15 minutes before the first pitch.
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