VIDEO: Carson-Newman vs King February 2024 Game 1 Highlights
VIDEO: Carson-Newman vs King February 2024 Game 2 Highlights
VIDEO: Carson-Newman vs King February 2024 Game 3 Highlights
JEFFERSON CITY, Tenn. – Carson-Newman (17-15) enters the final month of the regular season having played some of its baseball of the season and will aim to carry that into April which starts with a road midweek matchup against King (9-22) tomorrow afternoon at 2:30 p.m. in Bristol, Tenn.
After shaky parts of March that included separate three and four-game losing streaks, Carson-Newman found its stride at the end of the month by winning five of its final six games to enter the final month of the regular season two games above .500 overall and in league play. All five of C-N's wins were decided by two runs or less. Carson-Newman has won 13 games this season by two runs or less.
Carson-Newman hit 25 home runs in the month of March, the most since hitting 36 back in March of the 2010 season. 12 different batters went yard, while James Denten, Logan Floyd and Harrison Travis each went deep more three or more times this month. The home-run hitting in March was highlighted by Travis homering three times becoming the first player in Carson-Newman baseball's recorded history to do such a feat. He hit a home run in all three game in that series with the Wasps. As a team, C-N capped the home run hitting month with a five home run performance in the series opener against Lenoir-Rhyne over the weekend. It was C-N first game with five home runs or more in seven seasons.
Dalton McLain (Greeneville, Tenn.) is coming off C-N's first five-hit game from a hitter since 2022 when Henry Jackson had five hits against Limestone. McLain has now hit safely in eight straight games, his longest this season.
Tom Griffin's team is set to face King for the fourth time this season after sweeping the Tornado in a three-game series to start the 2024 season. Carson-Newman won the first two games of the series by two runs and then exploded for 13 unanswered runs in the series finale to win 13-3. The Eagles hit .259 as a team in the three wins and scored 20 runs. The pitching staff was outstanding as well, sporting a 1.80 ERA in the three wins and struck out 28 batters over 25 innings, only allowing five earned runs.
The Eagles have won seven straight meetings in the series and have not lost in Bristol since 2018. At King, Carson-Newman is 11-3 and has won in nine of its last ten trips. C-N's pitching has been the difference in this series, and has held King's offense to less than three runs during this seven-game skid against the Eagles.
The Tornado enter this midweek affair with a 9-23 overall record and is coming off a series where it got swept by Barton losing all three games by four runs or more. Similar to C-N, King has just two midweek wins this season and has lost its last three. After losing to Carson-Newman to start the year, Blaine Brown's team lost seven straight to begin the year but responded by rattling off five straight wins. The month of March was less than kind as King won just three of its 13 games and has lost four of its last five.
Despite the 10th highest fielding percentage in Conference Carolinas, King has turned the third-most double plays and averages almost one per game. It has 14 games without an error this season. The club's 14 sacrifice bunts are the fourth-most in the league and its 59 stolen bases are third-most.
Chad Evans leads King with 26 RBI and has five home runs in 31 games. 9 other hitters have hit multiple home runs for an offense that has the fifth-most in Conference Carolinas. Truman Roper is hitting .390 and paces an offense that hits .260 as a team and averages just five runs per game.
Fans can follow along with the action with updates on Twitter (X) and Instagram at CN_eagles. A live stream of the game is available at https://conferencecarolinasdn.com/king/.
