VIDEO: Bryan Everhart Interview
JEFFERSON CITY, Tenn. – Senior shortstop Bryan Everhart (Greeneville, Tenn.) clobbered the Carson-Newman Eagles (11-13) first grand slam of the season in the third inning powering coach Tom Griffin group's to a 20-3 win over the Cedarville Yellow Jackets (6-6) Tuesday afternoon at the Silver Diamond Baseball Complex.
The 20 runs scored by Carson-Newman marked the first time since March 28, 2010 that an Eagle team scored at least 20 runs. The Eagles scored 21 at Pfeiffer five years ago.
11 batters tallied a hit in the game as double-digit hitters notched a knock for the first time since April 16, 2014 at Belmont Abbey when 10 players did so.
"It was a good day offensively," Griffin said. "I thought there were a lot of quality at-bats getting a lot of two-out, two-strike hits. [Greg] Jones started that off. I thought something we had been missing was the two-out or two-strike hits and that's the difference in the game with putting a crooked number up early."
For the 16th time this year, Carson-Newman scored first. Junior Joe Tipton (Dandridge, Tenn.) flared a single into rightfield to begin the bottom of the first inning. Junior third basemen Brandon Roberts (Davie, Fla.) drew a six-pitch walk. After back-to-back strikeouts, freshman designated hitter Cade Snapp (Seymour, Tenn.) reached on an infield single to extend the inning. On a 1-2 pitch, sophomore catcher Greg Jones (Maryville, Tenn.) rocketed a ball off of the wall in right to plate Tipton and Roberts to make it 2-0 after a frame.
David Lenhardt began the second inning with a laser down the rightfield line for a single and advanced to second on a fielding error by senior rightfielder Cody Fox (Seymour, Tenn.). Lenhardt came around to score as the next batter, Steve Cardwell, smacked a ball off of the wall in leftfield to pull the Yellow Jackets within a run.
Everhart drove the first pitch he saw with two outs and the bases loaded in the third well over the left-centerfield fence to extend the Eagles advantage to 7-1. It was the first grand slam by a Carson-Newman batter since March 26, 2014 when Evan Kirkpatrick's inside-the-park grand slam at King.
"I was trying to be aggressive," Everhart said. "Coach was talking about timing and confidence. Also, I personally think RBIs come early in situations like that because pitchers are trying to get ahead so he can get into his count. I was just sitting on that fastball and trying to put a good swing on it."
Carson-Newman starting pitcher Logan Shaftner (Lexington, Ky.) had retired six straight until Cedarville third basemen Drew Johnson hammered his first home run of the year on the first pitch he saw in the top of the fourth frame.
After the Eagles scored three runs in the fourth inning, senior leftfielder Bo Ausmus (Jefferson City, Tenn.) added to the Carson-Newman lead with a two-out double off the centerfield fence in the sixth stanza to extend the lead to 12-2.
Sophomore second basemen Joey Selitto (Newton, N.J.) brought home the second run of the seventh inning with a double inside of the third base bag to put the home team ahead 14-3.
Carson-Newman capped the run scoring by sending 11 men to plate in the bottom of the eighth, the third time in the game that the Eagles batted around in the game. An RBI single to right from Everhart and a two-run base hit to left from Selitto added three more runs to lead. Ausmus was hit by a pitch to plate another run while Jurjevic doubled to the alley in left to cap the scoring and give the Eagles a 20-3 advantage.
"Hitting is all mental," Griffin said. "When they feel good, they see it big. When they are struggling it looks like a golf ball. Today was a good day and you just want to keep building upon that and have the right attitude each and every day about how we go about our business."
Tipton, Jurjevic and Selitto each had three hit days. Selitto notched his first career multi-hit and multi-RBI day of his career going 3-for-4 with four RBI and two runs scored. Jurjevic and Ausmus each drove in three runs in the game as each player tallied his ninth multi-hit game of the year.
Everhart finished 2-for-5 with a career-high five RBI and matching a career-best with three runs scored.
Shaftner worked a career-high seven innings to improve to 2-2 on the year allowing three earned runs on six hits, one walk and four strikeouts.
The two ball clubs wrap up the series Wednesday afternoon at 1 p.m. Pregame coverage begins 10 minutes prior to the first pitch on the Eagle Sports Network by visiting cneagles.com/live.
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