GREENEVILLE, Tenn. – In one of the oldest series in the South Atlantic Conference, Carson-Newman makes the short journey down the road to challenge Tusculum in a three-game series at Pioneer Park starting on Friday at 6 p.m. wrapping up with a doubleheader on Saturday starting at 1 p.m.
"We are training pretty well," Carson-Newman coach Tom Griffin said. "The dinner's cooked. Now we just have to go enjoy the meal and compete. Tusculum is trying to get back in this thing. A series win for them and they feel like they have a shot at this thing. Now we get to see mano y mano. Here it is. Let's see what we do."
Carson-Newman (22-16, 7-7) has regained its aggression on the base paths swiping multiple bases in five of the last seven going 13 straight steals without being caught. Prior to that time, the Eagles had only stolen a base in four of the previous 18 outings where it went 6-for-17 in attempts.
During the team's six-game homestand, Griffin's group allowed less than five runs per game and struck out nearly 10 batters per nine innings recording back-to-back games with 11. The last time the Eagles had a span of three consecutive affairs with double-digit strikeouts was the first three games of the 2021 season.
The two programs have faced off 104 times with the Eagles holding a slight 53-51 all-time edge behind a 9-7 neutral site tally. Each club has won 23 times at Mossy Creek and 21 times at Pioneer Park. This will be C-N's first visit to Tusculum (15-20, 4-11) since April 20-21, 2018. The Orange and Blue have swept the last two series in Greeneville with six straight wins since falling 4-3 on March 1, 2015.
In 2018, the Eagles swept the final weekend of the league year to vault into third for the SAC Tournament leaning heavily on the bullpen. In 12 innings of relief work, five hurlers combined to allow three runs while striking out 14 batters and giving up seven hits as two games were decided by three runs and one by a pair.
Overall, the Pioneers have won seven of the last nine meetings winning each of the last two series including taking three out of four over C-N in 2021. The units met in a non-conference game on March 2 seeing Tusculum launch four home runs to overcome an early 2-0 deficit to hand the Eagles their fourth straight home loss.
Through five league series, the Pioneers have been swept once while dropping two out of three in the other four that includes matchups with ranked foes in Lenoir-Rhyne and Newberry. To start the year, the program won seven of its first 10 but is 8-13 since Feb. 22.
During that timeframe, the team has not won back-to-back games but will have a chance to do so on Friday after taking down Mars Hill 13-4 on Wednesday. In the last 21 games, eight games have been decided by two or fewer runs, only one of which has resulted in a Pioneer win.
In conference outings, Tusculum has mustered the third-fewest runs posting 4.5 runs per game posting a .246 team batting average while swiping nine bags, the second-fewest. On the mound, the team is striking out 6.95 batters per nine innings giving up eight total long balls.
No team in the league commits more errors per game with the Pioneers racking up a .943 fielding percentage, 216th in the country. Out of 35 games, the team has committed at least two miscues 26 times including seven of the last nine. Opponents have stolen 48 bases and been caught 19 times.
Zane Keener is the team's leading run producer with 27 adding six home runs but he hit .238 over the month of March. However after going 11 straight games without a multi-hit outing, he has four in his last 11 contests riding a four-game hitting streak going 7-for-18 with a homer, three RBIs and five runs scored.
Will Samuelson is the team's hottest hitter riding a nine-game hitting streak and reaching base safely in 13 in a row with three consecutive multi-hit affairs. In that time, he is 12-for-39, .307, with a long ball and seven RBIs. Three others have active hitting streaks of at least five.
All three games this weekend will air on the Eagle Sports Network with live audio streams available on cneagles.com/live covering the three-game series between the Eagles and Pioneers.
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