GREENEVILLE, Tenn. --- Six Tusculum pitchers combined for 13 strikeouts including four over the final two innings as the Pioneers defeated visiting Carson-Newman 4-2 Tuesday afternoon at Pioneer Park in a non-conference baseball game.
The Pioneers (3-4) scored four unearned runs in the third inning thanks to one hit, two walks and two C-N errors.
The Eagles (3-3) plated runs in the fourth and fifth innings, but the pitching trio of Trejen Fox-Birdwell, Caid Sanders and Drew Sliwinski blanked Carson-Newman for the final four innings to secure TU's second straight win.
Reliever Jake McKenna (1-0) picked up the victory in relief as he went 1.2 innings where he allowed one run on one hit. Tusculum pitching retired the final eight batters of the contest including Sliwinski who posted a pair of strikeouts in the ninth inning to secure his first save of the season.
In the bottom of the fourth, Avery Collins led off with a base hit and was safe at second on a throwing error on Luis Reyes' fielder's choice. A walk to Zane Keener loaded the bases and Zach Wilson struck out for the first out of the inning. Ben Scartz reached base on a fielding error which allowed two runs to cross the plate as TU led 2-0. Omar Carreras walked to load the bases which was followed by Murphy Flood's sacrifice fly to bring home Keener and move Scartz to third to put runners on the corners. Both runs would move up a base on a passed ball as TU led 4-0.
The Eagles answered with a run in the top of the fourth as Aiden Gibson was hit by a pitch, moved to third on a pair of wild pitches and scored on Ryan Potts' pinch-hit double. C-N added another run in the fifth on Gibson's two-out RBI single.
Carson-Newman loaded the bases in the sixth inning against Fox-Birdwell, but he worked out of the one-out jam with a strikeout and a ground out to preserve the 4-2 lead.
Gibson and Logan Floyd each had a two-hit performances in the game while the Pioneers were held to four hits in the contest.
C-N starter Brock Culpepper suffered the loss to even his record at 1-1.
Tusculum will open South Atlantic Conference play this weekend as they travel to Anderson University for a three-game series beginning with Friday's 4 p.m. opener.
