JEFFERSON CITY, Tenn. – No. 21 Carson-Newman (12-3, 5-1 SAC) goes for its best home start in the program's modern baseball history as it welcomes Lincoln Memorial (8-7, 3-3 SAC) to the Silver Diamond Baseball Complex for a three-game conference series starting tomorrow afternoon at 2:00 p.m.
Carson-Newman has won its first nine home games of the 2025 season. It matches the best home start to a regular season since 1993. The Eagles have series sweeps of King and Emory & Henry, while also securing wins versus Charleston (W.V.) and Trevecca Nazarene.
During this home winning streak, the Eagles have outscored their opponents 81-27 and are hitting .343 as a club. Four different hitters have at least 9 RBI at home with Logan Floyd pacing the way with his 14.
The pitching staff has complimented the offensive attack quite well. C-N has posted a 3.00 ERA in nine home wins and has limited its opponents to one run or less in five of the nine victories. Charleston has scored the most runs of any opponent at the Silver Diamond Baseball Complex this year with seven, but five of them came when C-N was already ahead 13-2 with just two innings left in the game.
Yesterday afternoon, C-N found itself ranked 21st in the latest National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association poll for the first time since March 6, 2019.
The Eagles have won five of their first six South Atlantic Conference contests, including a pair of one-run wins. With a series win over LMU this weekend, it would mark the second time in the past three seasons that C-N has won its first three conference series.
Carson-Newman has won eight of the past nine meetings against the Railsplitters and leads the all-time series 45-42. Five of the past eight wins for C-N have come by one-run including the series finale in last season's series in Harrogate. The Eagles have won seven straight home games versus LMU, with the last loss coming in March of 2019.
In the South Atlantic Conference's preseason coaches' poll, Lincoln Memorial was selected to finish third, only behind Catawba and Wingate. The Railsplitters are 8-7 overall this season, getting back above .500 after a 14-3 win over Trevecca Nazarene on Tuesday.
LMU has already played eight road games this season, going 3-5 in those affairs and have lost back-to-back road games. Those road losses came to UVA Wise this past weekend. LMU won the series opener 14-2 but lost 5-3 and 8-7 in the final two games to lose the conference series. That sequence was flipped in the first series of conference play at home versus Limestone. The Railsplitters fell in the series opener but won the final two games by close margins and sit at 3-3 in SAC games.
During the first month of the season, Kasten Harvey was one of the most elite hitters in the country. He leads the conference and is fourth nationally with seven home runs in 15 games this season. He hit seven home runs all of last season. Harvey has a team-best .362 batting average and 21 hits to pace an LMU offense that averages just six runs per game. As a team, the offense is toward the bottom of the league with a .258 batting average and .358 on-base percentage.
Among pitchers with multiple starts, Colin Murphy has the lowest earned run average at 3.92 over 20.2 innings. Eli Edds has the most strikeouts with 23 over 22 innings and has a 4.09 ERA. Aiden Carter is one of the top relievers for LMU. In six appearances, he has a 2.61 ERA over 10.1 innings. Payton Armour is another strong reliever with 19 strikeouts in just 11.1 innings on the mound.
First pitch tomorrow afternoon is scheduled for 2:00 p.m. All games will air with a video stream available on FloSports with a subscription. There will also be a free audio stream available courtesy of the Eagle Sports Network on cneagles.com/live.