GAFFNEY, S.C. – Riding a five-game winning streak in South Atlantic Conference play, Carson-Newman goes on the road to visit Limestone for a three-game series starting with a twin-bill on Saturday at 2 p.m. with the finale slated to start at noon on Sunday.
"I think our guys have short memory," Carson-Newman coach Tom Griffin said. "They will forget this. We will come back and make sure the body and mind are ready to go for the weekend. We will get them ready. I know Noah Pridmore, our first guy, is going to compete on the mound. We will get our lineup back."
Winning five of their first six SAC contests, the Eagles are off to their best start in league action since 2018 when the unit opened 6-1 before finishing the year 16-11 in third place in the standings. The last time the program won more than six of its first seven came in 2013 opening the year 9-1.
Carson-Newman (12-12, 5-1) has won five league games in a row third year in a row with the only stretch longer than that coming in 2021 when it won eight straight sweeping four-game series against UVA Wise and Queens.
The two programs have met 47 times since 1988 with the Eagles holding a 29-18 overall advantage thanks to a 13-1 mark in games played at Mossy Creek. C-N is 14-17 at Limestone (8-14, 3-6) but it has won nine of the last 11 including series wins in three straight trips. The Orange and Blue have won five in a row and 11 of the last 12 with the lone exception coming on Feb. 4, 2021, a 4-3 setback. In that period, the club is outscoring the Saints 126-84, a plus-42 run differential with five games in double figures.
Last season, Griffin's club racked up 31 runs limiting the Saints to 13 in a three-game sweep at the beginning of April that saw the unit lose a 5-0 lead in the finale before winning in the eighth inning on a walk-off homer by Henry Jackson (Waxhaw, N.C.).
Carson-Newman's starting pitching allowed two runs, one earned run in 14 innings with 11 punch outs and nine hits allowed for the weekend. The two clubs combined to hit 13 homers for the weekend with Kilian Daughtry and Gunnar Ricketts each blasting a pair.
After winning one game in league play last season, a 14-11 victory over Mars Hill on Feb. 26, going 1-23, the Saints had lost 24 league games in a row before winning at Coker 7-3 in the series finale of the first weekend of league play in 2023. The group has won one game in each series played but has dropped 13 consecutive series since taking three of four at home against Newberry on April 2-3, 2021.
This year's team won each of its first three games of the year before a five-game winning streak. Since Feb. 18, the Saints are 3-9 with half of the team's overall losses this year coming by three or fewer runs. The group is a .500 team at home going 5-5 versus a 3-9 mark on the road.
Limestone is 11th in the conference in scoring averaging 5.2 runs per game scoring a league-low 115 runs despite having Peter Adams who ranks third in the league with a .414 batting average. He has eight multi-hit games this year with six extra-base hits out of his 24 knocks for the year.
While the Saints have seven games with 10-plus hits in the last 11 games, the group has only scored 45 runs over that period, an average of four per game. The hitters have compiled eight homers for the season and only 51 extra-base hits out of the team's 194 pokes.
Coach Brett Harker's team is in the bottom 30 of the country and 11th in the conference with a .943 fielding percentage committing errors in 18 of 22 games. There have been 12 games with at least two miscues with the team going 2-10.
One of the team's biggest strengths this year has been missing bats ranking fifth in the league with eight strikeouts per nine innings pitched with three hurlers in the top 21. As a staff, the group has fanned at least 10 six times winning three of those games including a season-high 17 against Belmont Abbey on Feb. 7.
Jake Contino has been steady on the rubber posting a 3.12 ERA ranking in the top 10 in the league in that category and hits allowed per nine innings (6.75) and strikeouts (33). The right-hander has not allowed more three runs in any outing. Last season, he gave up seven earned runs in four frames against the Eagles.
All three games this weekend will air on the Eagle Sports Network with an audio stream available on cneagles.com/live.Second-place Eagles visit Saints in SAC action
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