JEFFERSON CITY, Tenn. – Having lost five straight games to Mars Hill, Carson-Newman returns to the Silver Diamond Baseball Complex for its first South Atlantic Conference series at home in three weeks starting at 2 p.m. on Friday afternoon.
Two wins would seal a winning record in conference games for coach Tom Griffin's group for the third time in the last four years. Three victories would get the team to 14 SAC triumphs which would mark the 14th time since 1990 that the team has produced at least 14 in a season (seven seasons with 14, five with 15 and one with 16 - 1993).
Mars Hill has won nine of the last 10 meetings between the two programs having won each of the last five series since Carson-Newman took two out three at Mossy Creek in 2012. The Lions have won five straight overall since the Eagles won 6-2 on March 16, 2015 and five straight in Jefferson City since an 11-3 C-N win on March 7, 2014.
Last season, Mother Nature interjected into the series as the first game of the series was delayed 42 minutes and after waiting out a 90-minute lightning delay the two clubs finished the game on Saturday and snuck in another outing before washing out the series finale. The Lions won 8-4 and 8-2 in the final regular-season set for the two units. Mars Hill produced 23 hits while limiting the Eagles to 11 in 18 innings of baseball.
"They have done a great job versus us and me over the last couple years," Griffin said. "They have had a lot of success so I know what we are going to get. [Coach] Aaron's [Rembert] groups are very good. The home runs – they have some power. We faced it with LMU and Wingate. They have some team speed. It's a young group as well with sophomores and juniors. They have a lot of momentum in terms of how they are playing, what they have done in the past against us and the type of players they have the can win against anybody."
After opening the year 7-20-1, Mars Hill has rattled off seven straight wins and concluded an 11-game homestand 8-3. Despite the recent run of success, the group is one of the worst clubs in the nation in road games holding a 3-15 record in away affairs.
In road games this year the offense is hitting nearly 100 points lower registering a .222 batting average as a group to average four runs per game compared to 10 per outing in home games. In February, the Lions played on the road 12 times recording a .232 batting average for the month. The pitching staff has an ERA about a run lower on in away contests at 5.97 as a group.
On the season, the Lions rank third in the country in home runs with 51 on the season, 39 of which have come inside of the friendly confines. Christian Stampler is fifth in America with 13 long balls and Matt Honeycutt is 16th with 11 long balls in 2018. Nine of Stampler's dingers came in an 11-game stretch from March 16-31 while Honeycutt blasted seven over a seven-game period from March 20-31.
Coach Aaron Rembert's pitching staff is eighth in the league in team ERA at 6.61 having allowed the second-most homers on the year at 41. Thirty of those roundtrippers came in a 16-game sequence from Feb. 27 to March 30 as the unit has given up just one over the last five games.
Senior left-hander Zac Brown is ninth in the league in ERA at 3.81 while being third in strikeout-to-walk ratio with a 3.62 clip. After an outing where he gave up five runs on four outs as a sophomore, the southpaw dazzled in 2017 tossing five innings of one-hit baseball retiring 14 of 15 Eagles with nine strikeouts in game one of the series.
All three games will be featured on cneagles.com/live starting 10 minutes before first pitch on the Eagle Sports Network with audio and video streams available for free.
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