JEFFERSON CITY, Tenn. – For the first time in 2022, Carson-Newman is slated to host a weekend series with NCAA regional participant, the Golden Eagles of Charleston, visiting Mossy Creek for a three-game set starting on Friday at 2 p.m. wrapping up with a doubleheader on Saturday at noon.
"Coach Robbie Britt is a Tennessee guy and does a phenomenal job," Carson-Newman coach Tom Griffin said. "Charleston had a good program. He came in and has established it where it was if not more. Robby is an intelligent young man, great feel for the game, great organizational skills. Those guys play extremely well and develop their players. It's a good test. It will be like a conference weekend for us."
There is no series history between the two programs with Carson-Newman (7-2) having played Mountain East teams as recently as 2019 when it swept Alderson Broaddus in a four-game set and took a doubleheader over Davis & Elkins outscoring the teams 66-21. Against the Mountain East, the Eagles are 15-1 all-time with the lone loss coming in the 1999 Division II World Series to West Virginia State on May 25 losing 14-4 in to end C-N's season.
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Charleston (2-4) is coming off of a season where the program won the Mountain East Conference regular-season championship going 33-13 overall posting a 24-4 mark in league play. For the efforts, the team hosted the NCAA's Atlantic regional earning the No. 5 seed. Despite losing the first game of the regional, the Golden Eagles tallied back-to-back elimination game wins before falling to second-seeded Millersville in the game before the title game, 3-1.
Over the last four full seasons, the team has won at least 30 games going to three regionals. Coach Robbie Britt took over the team in 2019 leading the team to a 83-37 record and a pair of regular-season titles. In 2021, the unit had a program-record 16-game winning streak at one point and peaked at No. 11 in the country. He played three years at Maryville and coached at Middle Tennessee State.
While the two programs have never met, the Golden Eagles are playing a third straight series against the South Atlantic Conference taking two of three against Lincoln Memorial before getting swept by No. 1 Wingate last weekend.
To open the year, the club was predicted to finish third in the Mountain East's South Division and lost five starters in the field and six of the unit's pitchers. Tyler Dellerman, a former MEC Freshman of the Year, hit six homers with 34 RBIs a year ago but has started the year 5-for-22 with four RBIs.
Putting the bat on the ball was a challenge against the Bulldogs last weekend as the Golden Eagles struck out at least 10 times in each of the three games and 18 times in the series opener. Two hitters are batting at least .435 while four others are hitting below .238. Kyle West leads the team with eight hits in 17 at bats while Casey Finck has driven in 10 runs with four multi-RBI days.
Take away two monster days by Wingate last weekend and the pitching staff has yielded less than 10 hits in four of the six affairs. However the Bulldogs blasted seven homers and scored 27 runs in the first two games of the series. The hurlers have not fanned more than eight batters in any game with 38 total in the first six outings.
All-Region selection Colt Webb fired 5 1/3 scoreless innings against LMU before giving up six earned over four frames in his last start. Chase Popplewell and Caleb Rush have formed a dynamic duo in the bullpen with a combined six shutout innings and eight punch outs.
Historically, Charleston has one of the legendary coaches in college baseball, Tom Nozica, who spent 42 years as the leader of the program from 1969-2011 racking up 654 wins. When he originally hired, he was tabbed as the baseball and soccer coach before the soccer program was scrapped in 1982. It returned and won a national championship in 2019.
All three games this weekend will air on the Eagle Sports Network with audio and video streams available on cneagles.com/live.
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