JEFFERSON CITY, Tenn. – 10 years removed from its last South Atlantic Conference Baseball Championship, Carson-Newman begins play in the 2017 tournament as the No. 7 seed against sixth-seeded Coker Thursday evening at 7 p.m. from Smokies Stadium.
The winner advances to double elimination play Friday afternoon while the loser's season comes to a conclusion in the single elimination portion of the league championship.
"You just have to get into double elimination play," Carson-Newman coach Tom Griffin said. "Your guys have to be great that day and you don't know what is going to spin after that. Coker a couple years when they were in Conference Carolinas were the last seed in their tournament and ended up going to the World Series. No one expected that. There are all kinds of cases in Division I where teams that barely got in make a run. This is another season coming up. We are 0-0 just like everyone else and we have to see what we can take from this."
Carson-Newman (25-22, 10-13) has won four SAC Championships (1992, 1993, 1997 and 2007) since the tournament began in 1991. Catawba (7) and Wingate (6) are the only schools with more titles. Tusculum has also won four trophies.
In 2007, the Eagles won three games in one day including scoring three times in the 12th inning to beat Tusculum 6-3 and earn an automatic berth in the NCAA Division II South Regionals. The game last 3:57 and was the longest game in SAC Tournament history.
The regular season champion has won the tournament title 13 times in 27 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.
The Eagles have played at Smokies Stadium 10 times prior to Thursday's affair playing each regular season during a stretch from 2009-2014 while holding a 4-6 record before going 2-2 in league championship play in 2016.
Since Coker (22-22, 12-12) joined the league prior to 2014, the Eagles hold a slight 5-4 edge winning each of the last two series, both played in Jefferson City, while the two clubs were not slated to play this season and have not played in the postseason.
"I would say it is a disadvantage," Griffin said. "You would love to know more about your opponent. We do know something about them from last year but kids change when they are 18-21. You can't base anything on last year. We do know some things based on statistical stuff. The bottom line is we have to take care of the baseball and do what we do best."
The 2016 series saw C-N capture the opener and finale en route to its first SAC home series win. Cade Snapp led the Eagles in the series with six hits and three RBIs and Brendan Campbell went 4-for-8 with four runs scored.
Coker was picked 10th in the preseason coaches' poll after second-team hurler Dallas Baldwin and Will Winslow departed. Shortstop Bryson Conner was picked on the preseason second-team as he hit .321 with 10 steals in 2016.
The Cobras recorded a 4-11 record in April earning three wins at home over Brevard, the last place team in the SAC that recorded a 3-21 mark in league play hitting .241 as a team and posting a team ERA of 7.43 giving up 10 long balls. Last weekend UNC Pembroke outscored them 39-3 in a four-game sweep.
At the plate the team is in the bottom three in almost every offensive category tallying a total of 368 hits on the year, 11th, while posting a team batting average of .272. With 13 home runs on the year, the Cobras are 206th nationally and registering 5.5 runs per game, ninth in league action.
Defensively Coker has the second best fielding percentage in the SAC at .963 for a pitch-to-contact staff. Only 32 teams have punched out fewer batters per nine innings than its 5.8 average.
First-year skipper Luke Harrigan's team placed two hurlers on the All-SAC teams as sophomore Griffin Hollifield was on the second team and senior Forrest Arnold earned a spot on the honorable mention group.
Hollfield has appeared in 22 games on the year and won the league's ERA title posting a 1.99 mark that shrunk to 1.17 during conference action while his WHIP was also a league best at 0.97.
Arnold ranked 19th in the league with 48 strikeouts in 71 innings pitched. The right-hander has started a game each of the last two seasons against C-N giving up 11 earned runs on 11 hits and six walks in 11 innings while fanning four.
- CN -
