2021 SAC Baseball Championships Bracket
KODAK, Tenn. – Looking to make a deep run into the 2021 South Atlantic Conference Baseball Championships, fifth-seeded Carson-Newman takes on eighth-seeded Mars Hill in a single-elimination game Thursday at 4:30 p.m. from Smokies Stadium.
The winner of the game will advance into the double elimination portion of the field with games starting on Friday with three straight days of tripleheaders. Should the Eagles emerge victorious, it would set the stage for a showdown with second-seeded Tusculum on Friday at 2:45 p.m. Mars Hill would play top-seeded Catawba at 11 a.m.
Carson-Newman (24-14) has won four SAC Championships (1992, 1993, 1997 and 2007) since the tournament began in 1991. Catawba (8) and Wingate (6) are the only schools with more titles. Tusculum has also won four trophies.
The Eagles hold a 53-45 record in the league tournament that includes an 11-11 mark in games played in the Volunteer State. Prior to the 2016 season, the last time the championships were held in Tennessee came in 2006 in Greeneville. This year is the fifth straight campaign at Smokies Stadium where C-N is 9-11 overall and 7-7 in league championships.
The regular season champion has won the tournament title 13 times in 30 tries while a top four team has won all but two championships. Wingate was a five seed in 2015 and finished the SAC regular season with a 15-15 mark. In 2000, Lenoir-Rhyne was sixth in the regular season in 2000 going 13-10 before marching to grab the hardware.
Coach Tom Griffin's group has been in the play-in round three times in the last four years with mixed results. In a six versus seven matchup in 2019, the Eagles fell 9-4 to Anderson. However in 2017 as the No. 7 seed, the club marched all the way to championship Monday before falling shy to second-seeded Lincoln Memorial.
Of the 94 meetings between the programs, six have come in the SAC Tournament. Carson-Newman leads the overall series 61-33 and 4-2 in the postseason but Mars Hill (17-21) has won each of the last two. The last SAC Tournament tussle came on April 25, 2010 as the Lions came out on top 6-3 scoring five runs in the second and taking advantage of four C-N errors.
In 2021, the teams were slated to play three times but only played once due to weather and rescheduled games. The Orange and Blue's lineup came alive winning 11-1 in run-rule fashion, the fifth time in the last six affairs C-N has posted double digits against the Lions posting 11 runs contest.
Entering the final weekend of the regular season, the Lions stood in 10th needing all sorts of help to reach the postseason. First of all, Mars Hill won three of four while Limestone and Anderson were swept by Catawba and Tusculum, the top two teams in the league, respectively. The club had lost 10 straight being outscored 115-31 before winning five of six in the final week.
As a program the Lions have never won a conference tournament title and is in the field for the first time since 2017 when they were the No. 4 seed losing to Newberry 7-6 and Catawba 11-1. Over the last decade, this is the third time the program has been in the field losing three in a row since a run to title round in 2010 after losing its first game. Mars Hill's last win, 4-0, came against No. 1 seed Wingate on April 23, 2010 when Justin Hall hurled a complete game shutout.
Only UVA Wise posted a worse team ERA among SAC schools this year as Mars Hill's pitching staff recorded an 8.70 mark with 44 homers allowed. The Lions walked the most batters in the league at nearly six per game and hit more batters than any team in the country (69) surrendering nearly a dozen hits per nine innings on the mound. Out of 38 games, there have been 13 occasions with double-digit runs allowed.
Five hitters have at least five homers this year with the team tallying 44, the third-most in the conference, 14 of which came against UVA Wise including eight in the series opener, tied for the second-most in league history. Tyler Lala leads the way with 10, six of which has come in the last 12 games. He has a hit in 12 of his last 13 (16-for-42, .381).
Thursday's affair will air on the Eagle Sports Network by visiting cneagles.com/live for the live video and audio streams or through the South Atlantic Conference app using your Roku, Amazon Fire or Apple TV. Ticket information can be found here with daily tickets and entire weekend packages available for purchase.
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