JEFFERSON CITY, Tenn. – Carson-Newman opened its 2025 season with a doubleheader sweep of King from the Silver Diamond Baseball Complex.
Game One: Carson-Newman 17, King 0
Ryan Higgins (Spotsylvania, Va.) [W, 1-0] tossed a 1-2-3 first inning and the offense went to work in the bottom half of the first. Spencer Williams (Seymour, Tenn.) took the first pitch to left center for a double and later scored after stealing third. Seth Benner (Morganton, Ind.) and Logan Floyd (Adairsville, Ga) later reached base and Nicholas Castellana (Lancaster, N.Y) drove them in with a single to increase C-N's lead to 3-0. Castellana's single would be the start of four consecutive singles, two of which were RBI singles from Braxton Smith and Cole Nathan. Williams closed the strong first inning with a sacrifice fly to give Carson-Newman a 6-0 lead after the opening inning.
"It's incredibly easy to pitch when you have the lead," Higgins said earning Food City Player of the Game honors. "Can't win ballgames without runs. So when I come back in the dugout in the first inning and I see they put up six, and then six again the confidence is just unlimited for me out there."
Carson-Newman's offense stayed hot into the second inning. With runners on second and third, Nathan drove in a pair of runners with a single to right field to make it an 8-0 game. The Eagles would score their third run of the inning off a wild pitch. Floyd capped the inning with a bases-clearing double into the right-center field gap to make it 12-0 C-N after two frames.
"Hitting can be contagious," Carson-Newman baseball head coach Tom Griffin said. "A guy up in front of you is barreling a ball up, it's contagious, it becomes 'Okay, we're barreling balls up', and hitters feed off of that."
Higgins surpassed his career-high in strikeouts by the third inning. The sophomore struck out the side in the top of the third. After the first out of the game was a groundout, Higgins recorded strikeouts for the next eight consecutive outs.
His strikeout streak ended after a leadoff single in the fourth, but a double play and a strikeout allowed him only to face the minimum and post another zero.
C-N went scoreless offensively in the third, fourth, and fifth innings, but Higgins continued to complement well, posting another zero in the fifth, and closed the fifth and sixth with his tenth and 11th strikeouts of the game.
The Eagles were able to plate their 13th run of the game in the sixth after a Tornado call to the bullpen walked four straight batters to walk in Tanner Kilgore (Kingsport, Tenn.).
C-N went to the bullpen for the first time in 2025 handing the ball to Braxton Roberts (Sweetwater, Tenn.) appearing for the first time in two seasons after battling injuries. He allowed just one hit through his first inning of work.
Carson-Newman's offense kept punishing King as Trey Miller (Rocky Point, N.Y.) laced a double to left-center plating a run, and was later driven in himself on an RBI groundout by Floyd for the third run of the inning after a bases-loaded wild pitch accounted for the middle of the set of runs in the seventh.
The Eagles would add another run in the eighth with an RBI groundout from Cole Nathan (Knoxville, Tenn.) that plated Jacob Rogers (Dandridge, Tenn.) who came in as a defensive substitution at catcher the previous inning to take the 17-run advantage.
Mark Salicco (Waxhaw, N.C.) came in to close the door with a large cushion and promptly slammed the door with three straight strikeouts to put the bow on a season-opening victory.
Game Two: Carson-Newman 9, King 5
The Eagles got off to a hot start in the first inning and it was déjà vu all over again. True freshman starting pitcher Kolton Casson (Benton, Tenn.) [W, 1-0] shoved setting down nine of the first 11 batters he faced with the only two Tornado batters to reach doing so via C-N errors.
C-N kept the bats hot from the first game as Castellana struck home two runs with a single into left-centerfield, and after stealing second base was driven in himself by Aiden Gibson (Cleveland, Tenn.) who singled to the King centerfielder to give the home squad a quick 3-0 lead through the first frame.
The Eagles would strike again in the second using small ball as Food City Player of the Game Trey Miller got aboard to lead off the frame and worked his way around to third using a groundout and a stolen base before scoring on an RBI groundout from Julian Hines (Glendora, Ca.) to extend the lead to four.
"I thought we did a great job of attacking early, and putting it on them early again," Miller said. "We're a good team, we play some small ball if we have to and just get started, get hot."
C-N wouldn't let up in the third plating three more runs with a 2 RBI double from Miller, scoring himself on a Williams RBI single to left.
King found the scoreboard for the first time in the doubleheader in the fourth when Michael Starrs sent a long ball into Mossy Creek over the leftfield wall scoring a runner who had walked to lead off the inning. The Eagles responded in the bottom half with two runs of their own courtesy of a Gibson RBI single and a double steal of second and home that plated Castellana. Gibson took off when the King catcher popped up to ask the umpire for a check swing appeal and Castellana followed suit scoring easily.
The Tornado would not go away quietly plating two more in the top of the fifth using back-to-back RBI singles and were about to plate a third run but excellent defense chopped the King runner down at home to end the frame.
King chipped away even more in the sixth as a leadoff double came around to score after tagging up on a flyout and an RBI groundout.
Pitching the final two innings Jackson Underwood slammed the door in the final inning of the seven-inning contest with a three up, three down inning to secure the sweep of the doubleheader.
Carson-Newman looks to sweep the three-game set against the Tornado on Sunday at 1:00 p.m. You can watch the game with a subscription via FloSports or listen to the game for free by logging on to cneagles.com/live. Live stats are available at cneagles.com/livestats.
To keep up to date with Carson-Newman Baseball follow us on social media @CN_Eagles on X and Instagram or Facebook at Carson-Newman Athletics. You can also log online to cneagles.com for team schedules, rosters, news and more.
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