JEFFERSON CITY, Tenn. – Matt Bradley hurled the team's first complete game of the season and Carson-Newman scored six times in the sixth to beat Coker 8-3 after falling 12-7 in game one of Saturday's South Atlantic Conference action at the Silver Diamond Baseball Complex.
"The guys responded tremendously against Coker," Carson-Newman coach Tom Griffin said. "It was a team that came in and punched right away. We had to respond in game two and Matt Bradley was really good on the mound. It was late in the game and you want to make sure you are competing for all of them. Thankfully we had Carpenter's big hit and Luke Goforth."
Carson-Newman (16-11, 3-4) had dropped eight of its last nine home games before taking the second affair setting the stage for a potential series win over Coker (8-19, 4-4) for the sixth straight time.
Game One: COKER 12, Carson-Newman 7
After five straight Snakes were retired, the bottom three of the lineup combined for three hits in a row capped by a two-run single back up the box by Andrew Scudder, his first two RBIs of the season, to put the visitors ahead 2-0.
Triston Fowler struck out the side in the opening frame but with one out in the third the Eagles found a rally. Jordan Griffin (Ellerslie, Ga.) followed a hit and a walk by bouncing a ball off of the third-base bag for an RBI double to get the Eagles on the board. Matt Parkinson (Whitesboro, N.Y.) produced an RBI ground and Ryan Potts (Dandridge, Tenn.) gave the team the lead by bouncing a ball through the left side of the infield to put C-N on top 3-2.
Entering the game with four total homers on the year, last in the conference, Coker went back-to-back in the third to go ahead 5-3. With two outs and one man on base, Brady Jeffcoat powered a ball over the fence in left-center field. Two pitches later Bryan Castillo hit the first long ball of his season to left field during a string of six pokes in a row by the Cobras.
For the fourth time this week, C-N scored at least four runs in an inning getting four across the plate in the bottom of the fifth to go ahead 7-5. A bases loaded hit batter opened the scoring before Harrison Travis (Soddy Daisy, Tenn.) roped a two-run double down the left-field line to put the Eagles back ahead. A fielder's choice ground ended the outburst.
With two outs and the bases empty, Reilly Hall blasted a solo homer to center field. Phil Griffor reached on a throwing error and a single set the stage for Cody Hanna to blast a two-run home run to straightaway center and put the Cobras ahead 9-7.
Hall cranked his second home run of the day, a one-out blast to left field in the eighth inning, marking the first time in the game that Coker scored with less than two outs to push the edge out to 10-7.
In the top of the ninth, the Cobras added two more runs on a base hit by Jeffcoat and a bases loaded walk to Hall giving the club its highest scoring output of the season.
Coker's bullpen combined to toss five scoreless giving up three hits and a walk a Cooper Thomas earned the save firing the final three frames with five punch outs.
Potts tallied the first four-hit game of his career going 4-for-4 with an RBI and a run scored. Griffin posted a pair of knocks with two RBIs from Travis.
All told the Cobras blasted five home runs after entering the game with four in the first 25 games of the year. Every starter reached base safely twice for the club with Hanna leading the way going 3-for-5 with three RBIs and three runs scored.
Game Two: CARSON-NEWMAN 8, Coker 3
Each of the first three batters reached to load the bases before Kilian Daughtry (Simpsonville, S.C.) ripped a two-run single back up the middle to put the Eagles ahead 2-0.
Hanna led off the second inning by slapping a ball off of the fence in left field for a lead-off double before moving to third on a sacrifice bunt and scoring on a fly out to right field to cut the margin in half at 2-1.
Coker regained the lead in the top of fourth when Hanna launched the first pitch he saw well over the well in right field with a runner aboard for his third home run of the season to flip the lead into the visitors' hands making it a 3-2 affair.
In the sixth, Carson-Newman produced its second-highest scoring inning of the season plating six runs to go on top 8-3. A walk and three hit batters tied the game at three. Andrew Carpenter (Morristown, Tenn.) and Luke Goforth (Blacksburg, Va.) rattled off back-to-back two-run singles before Daughtry punctuated the scoring with an RBI double into the left-center field gap.
Matt Bradley (Talbott, Tenn.) retired the final 11 batters of the game to record his fourth career complete game and the first by an Eagle this season. His final line read seven innings, three earned runs, four hits and five strikeouts as he tallied the first quality start by a C-N hurler since Feb. 19.
"It's not the first home run I've given up and is probably not the last one," Bradley said. "When I saw that I just need to keep us in the game. I know we have a great offense. If I could just keep it at three is what I kept telling myself we will end up winning the game."
Three Eagles tallied a multi-hit game with Daughtry going 3-for-4 with three RBIs. Carpenter and Goforth each had two hits and two RBIs.
All three of the hurlers used by the Cobras allowed two-plus runs with Hanna going 2-for-3 with two RBIs and two runs scored.
The two clubs wrap up the series on Sunday starting at noon from the Silver Diamond Baseball Complex with the broadcast airing on cneagles.com/live with audio and video streams on the Eagle Sports Network.
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