JEFFERSON CITY, Tenn. – After suffering its first two losses of the season after a 7-0 start, Carson-Newman will look to get back into the win column against the reigning national champions, Tampa, for a three-game set starting on Friday at 2 p.m. from the Silver Diamond Baseball Complex. Game two is Saturday at one with the set ending on Sunday at noon.
"If we have to do something in the next day to get them ready, it ain't going to matter this weekend," Carson-Newman coach Tom Griffin said. "It's what we have been doing since August. Be the best version of themselves but it's more the mentality and how we are reacting to any adversity or any success. That's the bottom line. It's like playing three-on-three basketball. Winner stays on the court. Don't get off the court. Stay on there and do whatever you have to do. Loose ball, get on the floor."
At the plate, the Eagles opened the year on a tear going 22-for-64, .343, with runners in scoring position. Over the last five contests, the unit is 7-for-48, .146, in such scenarios. The two bright spots have been Micah Genter (Jasper, Tenn.) and Kilian Daughtry (Simponsville, S.C.) who are 5-for-13, .385, and 4-for-10, .400, respectively on the year.
The two programs have squared off three times with Tampa (4-2) holding the upperhand in each game. The clubs first faced off on Feb. 11-12, 2000 with the Spartans winning 8-2 and 11-6 respectively in the Sunshine State.
When the clubs last met, it was the 2007 NCAA South Regional. Carson-Newman (7-2), the South Atlantic Conference Tournament Co-Champions, lost to Florida Gulf Coast 10-2 in the first game. The Eagles were eliminated the next day 6-4 after a four-run first by the Spartans. While Tampa had six players drafted from that team, the only future big leaguer to play was current Chicago White Sox reliever Steve Cishek. He allowed a run while fanning four over 3 1/3 innings.
The Eagles have player on No. 1 ranked team in history. It came in the 1999 South Regional when the Eagles pulled a 4-3, 11-inning upset of top-ranked Florida Southern. C-N later beat St. Leo to advance to the Division II College World Series. Since that point, the Eagles have played 1,061 games with 7,582 days separating the meetings.
As an athletic department, the last Carson-Newman team to upend a No. 1 team came on Feb. 4, 2015 when Chuck Benson's men's basketball club beat Lincoln Memorial in Harrogate, 87-72. Charles Clark exploded for 30 points on 11-for-17 shooting as the team shot 50 percent from the floor.
When discussing the blue bloods of the country, Tampa is in the conversation with the best winning eight national championships, one fewer than Florida Southern's nine for the most in the history of Division II. It has won five under current coach Joe Urso including three over the last seven seasons.
The Spartans have been nationally ranked for 234 consecutive weeks hold the top spot in the country for 85 weeks being in the top 25 during the regular season at least once since the 1999 campaign. The last time they were not in the poll came in the 11th week of 2005, promptly bouncing back and finishing the year No. 8.
As a program, Tampa has recorded 94 Major League Baseball draft selections including four from the 2019 National Championship team. Two legends suited up for the team in Lou PInella, 1960-62, and Tino Martinez. Piniella played 18 seasons in the big leagues and managed for 23 years ranking 16th on the all-time wins list.
Martinez was the 14th overall selection in the 1988 draft after breaking school records for batting average (.398), home runs (54) and runs batted in (222). The left-handed hitting first baseman played 16 years for four teams playing in All-Star Games in 1995 and 1997.
Tampa has lost to a pair of teams from the Southeast Region to open the season falling 11-3 to Mount Olive in the opener and 11-3 to Georgia College in the third game of the season. Fourteen different players have driven in at least one run with Jose Cadenas leading the team at the plate with a .350 average, four extra-base hits, five RBIs and three steals.
On the rubber, the unit is punching out a gaudy 13.17 batters per nine innings with 79 over 54 frames. There have been four outings so far with at least 15 combined after the team allowed one earned run over a three-game sweep of Post.
Each game of the three-game set will air on the Eagle Sports Network with video and audio streams available on cneagles.com/live.
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