VIDEO: Tom Griffin Interview

VIDEO: Xavier Hart Interview

ANDERSON, S.C. – No. 21/11 Carson-Newman (21-6, 11-2 SAC) fell behind by four runs after the first inning but its pitching staff recovered, and the offense came to life to take the series opener 8-5 over Anderson (17-11, 6-7 SAC) on Friday evening at Anderson Memorial Stadium.

"Anderson is a good club, that was a good ballgame today," Carson-Newman head coach Tom Griffin said. "There were squaring balls up early, you thought my gosh how are we going to stop them. But, Jackson is a mature kid and really gave us some good scoreless innings to keep us in it. The key was Xavier (Hart). Boy, he was dynamite. An electric fastball, good breaking ball to throw zeros. Fortunately, the bats started to come around a bit. Really encouraging to come on the road, be down early and be able to get back in it to win this game."

The win extends Carson-Newman's winning streak to five games, with four of the wins on the road. The four-game road winning streak is the longest road winning streak since 2022.

C-N has also now won seven of the past eight meetings in the series with AU.

The Trojans' bats were hot early. Four consecutive hits to start the bottom of the first plated two runs. A RBI groundout and a Kyle Caccamise triple to right center finished off a five-hit, four-run opening frame for AU.

Carson-Newman would cut into that Anderson lead over the next two innings. Trey Miller (Rocky Point, NY) dribbled a two-out single back up the middle to score Cole Nathan (Knoxville, Tenn.) to make it 4-1 in the second.

Next inning, Ryan Jenkins (Winter Haven, Fla.) reached on a fielding error to open the frame. He later scored on a wild pitch with two outs.

In his second career start, Jackson Underwood (Murfreesboro, Tenn.) recovered very well from the four-run first inning. Over his next three innings of work, he allowed just two runners to reach on a walk and an error to toss three consecutive zeros to keep C-N's deficit at just two.

The Eagles had some ideal situations to score runs in the middle innings, but stranded five runners over innings 4-6.

Xavier Hart (Sellersburg, Ind) relieved Underwood in the fifth inning, and continued to hold down AU's lineup. He sent Anderson down 1-2-3 in the fifth, and got an inning-ending double play to face the minimum in the sixth as well.

Carson-Newman's bats would come to life in the seventh frame. A hit by pitch to begin the inning was followed by three consecutive extra-base hits. Logan Floyd's (Adairsville, Ga.) double to right center plated two runs to tie the game at four. Next batter, Tanner Kilgore (Kingsport, Tenn.) laced a pitch to the same spot of the field for his first career triple to give Carson-Newman its first lead. Nicholas Castellana (Lancaster, NY) capped the four-run fourth inning with a sacrifice fly and the lead was two.  

Hart struck out the first two batters of the seventh inning and got an excellent defensive play in left field from Ryan Bolton (Knoxville, Tenn.) to pitch another scoreless inning.

Floyd continued his strong day at the plate with a RBI single to right field and the Eagles led 7-4 after eight innings.

Another insurance run came in the ninth from Aiden Gibson (Cleveland, Tenn.). He crushed his fourth career home run to the deepest part of the stadium to increase the lead to 8-4 heading into the ninth.

Anderson would score a run on a sacrifice fly in the ninth, but Eli Norris (Ringgold, Ga.) came in and struck out back-to-back batters to finish off C-N's win for his sixth save of the year.

Hart recorded his first career win, tossing a career-long four innings while striking out a career-high five batters.

"Today, I just trusted myself," Hart said. "I trusted everything they called for me to throw. It worked and let the guys behind me play. That's what worked well for me."

Carson-Newman's offense had 15 hits, reaching the double-digit hit mark for the 14th time in 27 games this season.

Floyd drove in a game-high three runs to pair well with his three-hit day at the dish. Gibson also finished with three hits and a RBI. In total, five Eagle hitters had multi-hit days at the plate.

AU's Walker Noland suffered his second loss of the year, pitching into the seventh inning but finished with six innings pitched allowing ten hits and five earned runs. Three different Anderson hitters had multi-hit days.

The series continues and wraps up tomorrow with a doubleheader starting at 1:00 p.m. The games will air with a free audio stream available courtesy of the Eagle Sports Network on cneagles.com/live.