JEFFERSON CITY, Tenn. – After being swept at home by Mars Hill over the weekend, Carson-Newman looks to forget about the weekend and turn its sights to the future and Limestone for a Tuesday affair with the Saints starting at 3 p.m. at the Silver Diamond Baseball Complex.
"All we are going to focus on is getting positive," Carson-Newman coach Tom Griffin said on Sunday. "We have to figure out what we have to do differently from this point on to get better, be more consistent and play to our abilities. As a coaching staff that is what we have to reiterate to these guys."
The last time Carson-Newman (20-18) lost a game resembling the 16-0 loss to Mars Hill on Sunday was a 17-0 setback to North Georgia in the third game of the season in 2017. The Eagles responded by winning each of the next four games and six of the next eight.
Sunday marked the first time since the 2016 that the Eagles were swept at home by a SAC foe. Griffin's group turned around and won four the final six SAC series, going 11-7, of the season to finish second in the regular sea-son standings.
C-N and Limestone (17-20) first played at Mossy Creek on April 19, 2006 and C-N has won each of the eight meetings at the Silver Diamond Baseball Complex outscoring Limestone 75-30 through the eight affairs.
These two schools faced off in the first weekend of the series as the Saints won the first two games in walk-off fashion. Ryan Williams provided a walk-off double in game one and Matt Orth cranked a walk-off dinger to cap a pair of comebacks.
For the Eagles at the plate, Colby Morgan went 7-for-12 while Brett Langhorne registered six hits, two walks, three RBIs and four stolen bases. Kyle Cagle carried a no-hitter through seven innings of work as the sophomore left-hander worked his first career complete game to win the series finale 7-1.
Limestone snapped a five-game losing streak by sweeping Southern Wesleyan over the weekend as it won the run margin 29-7 in the three-game set. The club sits in sixth place in the Conference Carolinas in a contingent of three clubs battling for the four through six spots behind the top three powers of the league.
As a unit, the team has hit a Conference Carolinas high 57 home runs to rank second nationally. Despite the power surge, the Saints are posting just over six runs per game to rank in the middle of the pack across the country. Limestone has failed to hit a long ball 10 times posting a 4-6 mark in those outings.
Infielder Chase Allen is one of the top players in the country in terms of home runs with 20 on the season. He hit three over the weekend to over the program record for home runs in a career with 41 becoming the third player in the history of Limestone to hit 20 or more bombs in a season and first in 21 seasons. The Eagles pitching staff held him in check in the first weekend of the season as he went 2-for-11 at the plate with two RBIs as he failed to homer in the first nine games of the 2018 campaign.
The pitching staff has been a different story as the hurlers are 232nd out of 262 schools in America in earned run average with a 7.42 mark on the season having allowed double-digit runs in 13 of the 37 games in 2018. The staff has surrendered multiple homers in six of the last 15 contests.
Fans can kick back and enjoy the Eagle Sports Network's presentation of the C-N baseball on cneagles.com/live in both audio and video formats beginning at 2:50 p.m.
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