May 2, 2025

C-N’s offense goes quiet in opening round loss to Wingate

18th ranked Carson-Newman (35-16) never got its offense going in an 8-1 loss to six-seeded Wingate (26-23) on Friday afternoon in the opening round of the South Atlantic Conference Baseball Championships.

Wingate

26-24

Carson-Newman

35-16

Final

Wingate

Carson-Newman

VIDEO: Tom Griffin Interview

HICKORY, N.C. – 18th ranked Carson-Newman (35-16) never got its offense going in an 8-1 loss to six-seeded Wingate (26-23) on Friday afternoon in the opening round of the South Atlantic Conference Baseball Championships.

"(Kelan) Hoover did a nice job for them," Carson-Newman head coach Tom Griffin said. "He did a great job for them. Andrew (Bench) struggled with the walks and hit by pitches. I just thought their approaches were better. Offensively, it has been a struggle. There are a lot of reasons why for that. I haven't prepared them well enough at the end of the year."

Free passes in the top of the first inning gave Wingate early life. A two-out walk and hit by pitch loaded the bases with two outs. On the first pitch, Joe Scheffler launched a fly ball over the left field wall for his first home run of the year to put Wingate up 4-0.

The Bulldogs would extend their lead in the second inning with more two-out offense. A walk and single put runners on first and second and Breon Ishmael drove a run in with a single to right field to make it 5-0.

Kelan Hoover was rolling early for WU. He retired C-N's first eight batters before Trey Miller (Rocky Point, NY) poked a single out toward the left field wall. That started a two-out surge for the Eagles. After Miller advanced to second on a passed ball, Ryan Jenkins (Winter Haven, Fla.) drove him in with a single through the left side to trim into the Wingate lead.

WU threatened to add to its advantage in the fourth. A single and two walks loaded the bases with one out. Blake Cooper (Maryville, Tenn.) regrouped and would strikeout the next two WU hitters and strand the bases loaded.

Cooper would continue to do his part out of the bullpen for Carson-Newman. He sent the Bulldogs down in order in the fifth and sixth innings to keep the deficit at four runs. Unfortunately for C-N, it failed to get a runner on base in innings five and six.

C-N's fourth hit of the game would come from Nicholas Castellana (Lancaster, NY) with two outs in the seventh inning, but he was left there.

Wingate would push its lead out to seven in the eighth inning. Will Farrell homered with one out and Jake Courville doubled in two runs later in the frame to make it an 8-1 game.

Logan Floyd (Adairsville, Ga) extended his hitting streak to 21 games with a leadoff single in the bottom of the ninth, but C-N did nothing with it.

Miller had two hits to pace Carson-Newman's offense with four others recording one. Half of C-N's hits came in a one-run third inning.

Andrew Bench suffered his second loss of the year in two innings of work. He allowed three runs to score on five hits and walked a career-high three.

Kelan Hoover was fantastic for Wingate. He pitched his first career complete game, allowing six hits and one unearned run to score with four strikeouts and just two walks.

#18 Carson-Newman will play in an elimination game against the loser of two-seeded Lenoir-Rhyne and seventh-seeded UVA Wise tomorrow afternoon. First pitch tomorrow afternoon in Hickory, North Carolina is scheduled for 3:00 p.m. All of C-N's games this weekend at the SAC tournament will air with a free audio stream available courtesy of the Eagle Sports Network on cneagles.com/live.