JEFFERSON CITY, Tenn. – Looking to snap a five-game losing streak, Carson-Newman returns to the Silver Diamond Baseball Complex where the club is 11-1 to host Lincoln Memorial in South Atlantic Conference play Friday and Saturday for noon doubleheaders.
"For us it is going into this thing doing the right things in training," Carson-Newman coach Tom Griffin said. "It's going to need to be on the mound. I think that's where it starts. Can we be in the strike zone? With two strikes, can we induce weak contact? It's in your favor with two strikes but unfortunately pitches have been getting hit hard against us with two strikes. The Queens series we had exceptional pitching. It's that kind of inconsistency – can we get consistency on the mound?
"Offensively and defensively, the guys that are getting a chance to play that were more reserves their opportunity is now. What do they do with it?"
The Eagles have dropped five straight outings for the first time since losing six in a row from March 6-16, 2015. There has not been a losing streak longer than that since dropping 12 consecutive games from March 9-29, 2013. Later that season, the club fell in a winner-take-all championship game after finishing fifth in the league standings.
Conversely, Carson-Newman (15-9, 10-6) has won nine straight home games, its longest home winning streak since 2010. During a 31-18 campaign, the program ripped off 13 contests in succession starting on Feb. 20 with a 15-2 win over the Railsplitters and ending on March 29 in 11-2 fashion over King. Nine of those wins were over SAC schools as the team went 16-4 overall at home.
While Griffin's group is atop the league statistically in batting average hitting .316 as a team, the Orange and Blue have drawn a SAC low 60 bases on balls with 19 games of three of fewer walks. C-N did not draw a walk in back-to-back games to close out the Wingate series, the first time it did not walk since March 17, 2019 at Catawba. Over the last 15 years, that has only happened once, in February 2014 versus Tusculum.
C-N and Lincoln Memorial (11-16, 8-12) have faced off 73 times with the 'Splitters holding a 39-34 edge thanks to a dominating stretch. The Eagles have lost 15 of the last 17 and eight consecutive series since they won two out of three in 2011 in Harrogate.
Since the Railsplitters joined the SAC in 2007, Carson-Newman is 0-for-5 when hosting LMU in a series falling in 12 of 14 affairs at Mossy Creek with losses in seven in a row. The last time the Eagles won a game at home came on March 1, 2014, a 6-3 triumph.
Coach Justin Haywood took over for 17-year veteran Jeff Sziksai, who led the team to 451 wins, three SAC Tournament titles and four NCAA Regionals, on April 16, 2020 after spending six years as an assistant. He played at Louisville helping the Cardinals reach the 2007 College World Series. His team was projected to finish seventh.
For the second time this year, LMU has won back-to-back games winning at Trevecca Nazarene and at home over Lenoir-Rhyne. It has not won a SAC series this season splitting with Anderson, Mars Hill, and Limestone while losing three of four to Wingate and Tusculum.
Lincoln Memorial leads the country in stolen bases with 63 on the year as Zach Fritts is ninth nationally with 14 and Brandon Parrott is 29th with 10. Twelve of the 14 hitters that have played this year have at least a pair. There have only been three games with zero swipes and 16 games with two or more including a season-high seven at LR on March 3.
With 6.3 runs per game, the team ranks eighth in the league at the plate seeing that number dwindle to 4.4 over the last seven games. Brent Richey is the team's leading hitter with a .341 average. However, since starting the year with a 14-game hitting streak where he hit .418, he is 8-for-36 in his last 13.
On the mound, the team is seventh in team ERA with a 5.51 tally allowing over five walks per game and just shy of 10 hits per contest. Evan Porter has been a consistent starter with a pair of complete games with at least six innings pitched in his last five outings. He was charged with 10 hits and 10 runs in his last outing on March 20 against Tusculum.
The bullpen combination of Ryan Franklin, Brennan Murphy and Mason Turner have hurled 43 1/3 innings yielding nine total earned runs with 49 punch outs. Opponents are hitting south of .200.
All four games this weekend will air on the Eagle Sports Network with audio and video streams available on cneagles.com/live.
- CN -
