JEFFERSON CITY, Tenn. – Carson-Newman looks to improve to 22-6 at home Tuesday afternoon at 3 p.m. when Bluefield State drops by for the final non-conference game in 2017 before coach Tom Griffin's team turns its head to the South Atlantic Conference Baseball Championships.
A win for the Eagles would be the 22nd home victory of the season. The mark would match the 2002 club for the most home wins in a season as the two teams would record identical 22-6 records. The 2002 team won the regular season title and went to the NCAA Tournament.
Tuesday is the seventh time that Carson-Newman and Bluefield State will meet on the diamond. Each of the first six meetings have come in Jefferson City with the Eagles winning all six outings while scoring at least 10 runs in each of the last four meetings.
The two teams opened up the series on March 2, 1995 with C-N winning 8-4. The second meeting came nine years later on Feb. 7, 2004. 2017 will be the fourth straight year the two squads meet.
In just one affair in 2016, Carson-Newman earned a 12-4 win on March 2. The Eagles used eight pitchers on the day as the group combined to punch out six batters while not allowing a walk and giving up just one earned run. Right-hander Austin Conner picked up his first-career win.
Paul Kirby tallied his third multi-hit game of the season going 3-for-4 with a long ball and three RBIs while scoring twice. Brandon Roberts racked up a three-hit effort for the third time going 3-for-4 with two RBIs and a run scored. Overall eight players had at least one hit with each of the top four men in the lineup recording multi-hit days.
The Big Blues, a team independent of a conference, went 12-38 in 2016 while losing each of their final six outings. The team played 31 road games going 5-26 in road outings.
Coach Geoff Hunter graduated six seniors from last season's team and returns 14 letter winners to a team that is 11 games under .500 on the year and has lost nine of their 11 outings. The Big Blues split a four-game series with St. Augustine's their last time out on April 14-15.
Bluefield State started the year with 26 straight road or neutral site games on the schedule while its first home game came on March 29 against Guilford. 15 of the final 21 games of the year are slated to be at home.
Of the 29 statistical categories that the NCAA ranks for baseball, coach Hunter's group is ranked no higher than 137 and placed 200 or worse in 16 separate groups.
The pitching staff strikes out the fourth-fewest batters per nine innings this season at 4.8 on average and allows over four walks per game while posting an 8.78 ERA giving up the second-most hits in Division II at 14 per contest.
At the plate the team is hitting .274 and scoring 4.7 runs per game to rank 213th nationally. Peyton Durham is the top option offensively hitting .273 with five long balls and 24 RBIs.
The Eagle Sports Network will be on site for the audio and video coverage on cneagles.com/live starting 15 minutes prior to the first pitch.
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