JEFFERSON CITY, Tenn. – Carson-Newman (3-0) hits the road for the first in 2025 as it travels to battle Shorter (2-0) at Robert H Ledbetter Baseball Complex in Rome, Georgia tomorrow afternoon at 1:00 p.m.
Carson-Newman's offense scored 33 runs in the first three games of the season and limited King to just 11 in an opening-weekend sweep of the Tornado at the Silver Diamond Baseball Complex. The Eagles have started a season 3-0 for the third time in the past four years. It's the program's eighth 3-0 start since 1990, with five of those coming in the Tom Griffin era. Carson-Newman is one of just four South Atlantic Conference schools and 25 in DII that finished the opening weekend with an unbeaten record.
Leading C-N's offensive onslaught after the first week was senior catcher Nicholas Castellana (Lancaster, N.Y.). He finished with seven hits in ten at bats, the most hits by any South Atlantic Conference hitter this past week. Castellana also drove in a team-best five runs in the three wins. Six other Carson-Newman hitters have at least two RBI over the first three games of the year.
The Eagles now take their unbeaten start on the road. C-N was 9-11 on the road in 2024, but won back to back road games to end last year. In Griffin's tenure, Carson-Newman is 215-211 on the road. C-N will be eyeing its first 4-0 start since 2022.
Carson-Newman will have a chance to snap a pair of streaks on Tuesday afternoon in Rome, Georgia. The first is a 13-game losing streak in Tuesday contests, all of which have been non-conference games. All of the losses have been over the past two seasons, with the last win coming against NAIA foe Milligan on Feb 7, 2023 by one-run. If not counting wins over DIII and NAIA opponents, the losing streak on Tuesdays is 15 with the last win on a Tuesday against a DII being Lee on March 15, 2022.
Shorter has been a thorn in Carson-Newman's side over the past six seasons. The Hawks have won eight straight meetings against the Eagles and lead the all-time series 9-6. All eight wins during Shorter's streak have been relatively close, with the largest margin of victory being a 7-2 win in Mossy Creek last season. Five of the eight losses for C-N are by three runs or less. After winning its first four road games in this series, Carson-Newman has lost its last three trips to Rome by a combined five runs.
Making the move to Conference Carolinas starting this season, Shorter was picked to finish 10th in the preseason coaches' poll. Like C-N, the Hawks finished their final season in the Gulf South Conference in seventh place, with a 15-15 league record. Shorter went 30-18 last regular season for their sixth straight winning season.
Wes Timmons' team was only able to play two of its three scheduled games with Kentucky State over the weekend. They swept the doubleheader with the Thorobreds winning 24-0 and 3-0.
The offense compiled 17 hits to score 27 runs with five guys finishing the weekend with more than one hit. Ajay Jones had hits in all four of his at bats, with two of them being doubles. Alex Brodie's only hit in seven at bats was the team's only home run. Brodie is one of two NCBWA All-South Region players that returns for the Hawks this season. The other is starting pitcher Seth Crowe. The All-GSC second team player had a 4.93 ERA over 87 innings last season with just 37 strikeouts.
Shorter has pitched just 14 innings in its two wins this season and has not allowed a run. Six different arms pitched for a Hawks staff that struck out 23 hitters, walked just three and allowed only four hits.
First pitch is scheduled for 1:00 p.m. An audio-only stream of the contest is available at cneagles.com/live.
