JEFFERSON CITY, Tenn. – Looking to extend its home winning streak, Carson-Newman hosts first-place and No. 12/22 Tusculum for a four-game South Atlantic Conference series starting on Sunday at noon wrapping up on Monday at 12 p.m. from the Silver Diamond Baseball Complex.
"They know who they are playing this weekend," Carson-Newman coach Tom Griffin said. "They know that they have Tusculum coming in. It's a great rivalry that we have had with them but our jobs as coaches is to tell them to worry about themselves – be the best version, take care of one day at a time and the process over the results. We are going to hold to that during our training."
Carson-Newman (19-9, 14-6) has won 13 consecutive home games and is 15-1 inside of the friendly confines this year. It has matched the longest single-season home winning streak since 1990 as the 2010 club did so from Feb. 20 to March 29, nine of which were against SAC programs. The longest overall mark in that period is 15 in a row when it won 11 straight to end 2008 and the first four of 2009.
The Eagles have played six games this year against top 25 teams going 3-3 seeing their record under Griffin rise to 28-52 with a 42-82-1 record as a member of NCAA Division II. Since national rankings have become readily available in the archives in 2009, the 2013 team with seven wins, the 2009 team with five and the 2018 club with four are the only teams with more triumphs versus ranked teams.
Over that timeframe, the Orange and Blue have three series wins against ranked clubs most recently taking two out of three against 14th-ranked Northwood on Feb. 18-19, 2018 seizing the final two of the series. The other wins were sweeps coming on Feb. 15-17, 2013 versus No. 19 Tusculum and on Feb. 14-15, 2009 against No. 22 Northern Kentucky.
Tusculum (22-7, 18-6) and C-N have squared off 98 times since the 1990 campaign with the Eagles holding a 51-47 overall edge and a 22-19 mark at home. The Pioneers have been ranked in 11 games holding a 7-4 lead in those games. There have been three series all sweeps with Tusculum sweeping in 2009 and 2012 before the Eagles avenged those setbacks with a sweep in 2013.
Due to scheduling quirks and weather, only five of the last 17 regular-season games have been played at Mossy Creek with the Pioneers snatching each of the last three games including a 9-4 decision on Feb. 12, 2020. C-N fell into a 7-0 hole through four-and-a-half frames.
The Pioneers were selected to finish fifth in the preseason poll but won nine of the first 10 games this season and has not dropped back-to-back contests all year. After losing 6-5 in the series finale to Anderson last week, the club has lost four of its seven games by one run. Tusculum has not lost a series this season with a split to Newberry the only outlier.
Coach Brandon Steele's team is one of the premiere offenses in the country leading the conference in eight offensive categories including. The unit is 14th nationally in on-base percentage (.445), sixth in doubles (67) and 15th in runs per game (9.5). The team has eclipsed double-digit runs 14 times but twice in the last 11 after opening the year with 12 in the first 18.
Tusculum has launched a homer in 23 of the 29 games played this year including at least one in each of the last eight (13 total) after having a stretch of 12 in a row earlier in the season. Brandon Trammell is one of the top power hitters in the country with 10, best in the SAC and 13th nationally. He has three in his last two games and is 10-for-20 in the last five games with four multi-hit games. The Tennessee transfer leads the country with 45 RBIs with 12 multi-RBI efforts on the year.
Showcasing its well-rounded form, the team's pitching staff ranks third in the conference in ERA with a 4.75 margin on the year as the home/road splits are 4.75 and 4.76 respectively. The one area where it does struggle is walks ranking eighth with 5.03 bases on balls per nine innings.
The pitching staff has allowed a total of 10 long balls this year with Gunner Becker taking the role of the team's ace. The senior right-hander is 6-1 with three complete games on the year. However, after going six-plus innings in his first four outings, he has walked 11 and given up seven earned runs in his last two starts spanning 7 1/3 stanzas.
Mitch McCain is one of the top bullpen options in the country having at least two appearances in each of the last five SAC series. The graduate student is 13th nationally in hits per nine innings at 3.99 and has a 1.23 ERA, second-best in the league. He has given up one earned run in his last 16 2/3 innings.
All four games this weekend will air on the Eagle Sports Network with audio and video streams available on cneagles.com/live.
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