Eagles prepare for early week home games with King, Lander
Carson-Newman softball (4-0) will try to keep its bats cooking with a pair of early week doubleheaders against King (1-1) and Lander (2-2). The Eagles have batted .455 as a team through the opening week of the season with a .553 on-base percentage.
Carson-Newman has outscored teams 40-1 through four games and has yet to play a regulation length contest, run ruling every opponent.
“I thought last season, as a coach, about some of the things we were so inconsistent on,” Carson-Newman head coach Vickee Kazee-Hollifield said. “I’m just trying not to look at the scoreboard and instead have our team go out and play the game as perfectly as we can based on the little things like pitching and hitting. We’re going to challenge ourselves that we’re not going to let up.”
C-N’s pitching staff has combined to hold opposing batters to just a .147 earned run average. It took opponents 17.1 innings before a team plated a run on the Eagles. The Eagles lead the SAC in runs allowed for the early portion of the season. Anderson is second with 10 runs allowed in six games.
Brittany Hefner (Talbott, Tenn.) leads C-N and the SAC in RBI with 12. Her 1.357 slugging percentage and 19 total bases are third in the league and tops on C-N. Cassie Lyons (Knoxville, Tenn.) is the only pitcher in the league to have a 0.00 ERA.
Monday, Carson-Newman v. King (Tenn.) 2/4 p.m.
King returns star pitcher Hanna Light, who went 19-6 in 2012, averaging nearly six Ks a game with a 1.33 ERA. In 2013, Light pitched a complete game shutout in King’s season opening win over Young Harris.
“They’ve got pretty good pitching,” Kazee-Hollifield said. “They’re just fundamentally sound and come out with high energy. We talked about it before out batting practice. We’ve just got to come out and match their energy and intensity”
The Eagles split a DH with King last year, taking game one 7-5 before falling in the second go around 8-3. The first game took nine innings to decide. The Eagles took it thanks to five runs in the top of the fifth.
Tuesday, Carson-Newman v. Lander 2/4 p.m.
The Eagles split a double header last year with Lander with a 7-2 win and an 11-3 loss. The Bearcats are led by pitcher M.K. Pegram who, like Lyons, has yet to surrender an earned run. In three appearances she’s given up just four hits.
The Bearcats have four players batting above .300, compared to eight for C-N. Melanie Davis leads Lander in that regard with her .500 batting average.
“They’re well coached with a new coach (Tina Plew-Whitlock),” Kazee-Hollifield said. “Anytime you line up against a Peach Belt school, you best be ready to play. They’re equally going to be a tough opponent.”
Plew-Whitlock spent the last four years coaching Lemoyne’s softball team. A Plew-Whitlock-coached Dolphins team handed C-N a 5-1 loss at the Mid-South Classic last year.
Both doubleheaders begin at 2 p.m. Coverage can be found online at cneagles.com with live video from the Coca-Cola Eagle Sports Network and live stats.
