JEFFERSON CITY, Tenn. – For the first time in six years, Carson-Newman (17-16, 10-8 SAC) welcomes Anderson to the Silver Diamond Baseball Complex for a three-game South Atlantic Conference Series starting Friday at 3:00 p.m.
Anderson's most recent trip to the banks of Mossy Creek was in 2018, a series that Carson-Newman swept. Over the last ten meetings, nine of them have been decided by two runs or less with C-N winning five of those contests. The Eagles have won five of the last six meetings at home in the series. Overall, Carson-Newman leads the all-time ledger 33-12 and grabbed such a comfortable series lead thanks to winning 17 of the first 18 games in this matchup.
Falling by one run in Tuesday's midweek contest at King, C-N suffered its closest defeat of the season, not having lost by a single run all season long prior to Tuesday. The one-run loss ended a stretch in which it had won six straight games that had been decided by two runs or less. Carson-Newman is 12-9 at home this season and is 5-4 against the SAC at the Silver Diamond Baseball Complex.
Carson-Newman hit 25 home runs in the month of March, the most since hitting 36 back in March of the 2010 season. 12 different batters went yard, while three of them went deep more three or more times this month.
In last week's conference series against Lenoir-Rhyne, Dalton McLain had C-N's first five-hit game since 2022 when Henry Jackson had five hits against Limestone. Logan Floyd had a career high five RBI in the series finale, the first player since Harrison Travis had five back in 2022 against Tusculum.
While the Trojans sport the same record as C-N, they have struggled in league play winning just seven games in 18 conference contests. The conference slate began with the club dropping its first two series and losing four of its first five games. AU's series wins are against E&H where it took two of three and most recently against Limestone, where AU swept the Saints in Gaffney.
Anderson has won five of its last six road games and is an even .500 in road games this season.
AU ranks near the top in team batting average and earned run average, ranking fourth in the SAC in both categories. As a team, the Trojans hit above .300 at the plate but score just 6.4 runs per game, eighth best in the league. The pitching staff has produced some excellent efforts this season, which is highlighted by a pair of shutouts, both of which came in February. The first being a 13-0 win over King and the second came toward the end of the month in a road conference win over Coker.
Carlos Hernandez is one of the toughest hitters in the league to strike out. The senior catcher has just five strikeouts in 131 at bats and has sports a team-best .359 average hitting. Kye Andress has a third of the team's home runs with 4 and has drove in 24 runs. Gray Wells has a team-high 33 RBI, three triples and three home runs.
Ben Smith is the team's ace, making nine starts this season and throwing just under 49 innings. The right-hander has a 3.26 ERA with 30 strikeouts to just 11 walks. He has lasted at least six innings in five of his nine starts. His five victories are fourth-most in the league.
The series is scheduled to start Friday at 3:00 p.m. and wrap up with a doubleheader on Saturday starting at noon. All three contests will air on the Eagle Sports Network with video available on FloSports with a paid subscription and an audio-only stream on cneagles.com/live.
