JEFFERSON CITY, Tenn. – Scoring at least two runs in five of nine innings, Young Harris beat Carson-Newman 19-7 Tuesday at the Silver Diamond Baseball Complex allowing a season-high 23 hits to the Mountain Lions.
"We battled and got everything we could out of guys on Sunday and Monday with Tusculum," Carson-Newman coach Tom Griffin said. "You want to win a series. We did that and then you get these midweeks and we aren't ready for that right now. That's alright. We got some guys some experience. That's good and I had some guys that hit well."
A hit batter and three straight walks put the Eagles on the board in the bottom of the first before a sacrifice fly to center field by Jordan Griffin (Ellerslie, Ga.) saw Kilian Daughtry (Simpsonville, S.C.) alertly sprint home to make it a 2-0 affair after an inning.
Young Harris knotted the margin at two in the top of the second inning behind an RBI double from Mark Castle and a bouncing ball back through the middle by Steven Spell.
The first batter was retired in the third inning before a base hit set the stage for Jackson Jones. The left-handed hitter pummeled the first pitch he saw over the wall in right-center field for his 10th homer of the year to put the Mountain Lions ahead 4-2.
Two errors helped the Eagles pull within a run at 4-3 in the bottom of the fourth. Gunnar Ricketts (Hixson, Tenn.) was at second base after a throwing error to open the frame. After the next two batters were retired, a base hit put runners at the corners. A ground ball to third went through the legs of Spell to bring in Ricketts.
Young Harris scored seven times in the fifth inning, tied for the most runs allowed by the Eagles in any inning doing so for the third time. Jones teed off for his second two-run blast to start the scoring with the Eagles committing two errors and a wild pitch that led to four runs with a ground out capping the outburst putting the home crew behind 11-3.
For the second straight game and fourth time in the last four games, Harrison Travis (Soddy Daisy, Tenn.) hit a dinger to center field on a 2-0 pitch in the bottom of the fifth to make it a seven-run affair.
The Mountain Lions scored three more times in the eighth on two bases loaded walks and a sacrifice fly to expand the bulge to 10 at 14-4.
With two outs and no one on base, Castle lost a ball in left field allowing Genter to roll over to third base starting a string of four straight hits scoring three times to slice the tally to 14-7.
Young Harris batted around again in the top of the ninth scoring five more times to jump out to a 19-7 advantage pounding out 23 hits for the game. The Eagles remain winless in five tries as the Mountain Lions tallied 19 runs a game after setting their program record with 31 runs on Sunday.
Seven players had a multi-hit game with three finishing with four knocks apiece led by Spell going 4-for-5 with three RBIs and two runs scored.
Carson-Newman used nine pitchers in the game with six giving up runs. Genter and Travis each had two hits with Carpenter and Travis knocking in a pair of runs each.
The Eagles are back in action over the weekend facing a Lenoir-Rhyne team that has the fourth-longest active winning streak in the country starting on Friday at 2 p.m. in South Atlantic Conference play. Broadcast coverage all weekend can be found on the Eagle Sports Network by visiting cneagles.com/live for the audio and video streams.
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