ROCK HILL, S.C. – For the fourth time this season, Carson-Newman (35-15) has the WePlayed Sports South Atlantic Conference Pitcher of the Week. Christian Henderson (Clarksville, Tenn.) was recognized for his first career honor by the league office on Tuesday afternoon.
Overall this season, Henderson’s first career honor is Carson-Newman’s sixth weekly honor from the league office. The Eagles have produced four pitchers of the week and two hitters of the week in 2025.
Henderson joins fellow freshman Kolton Casson (Benton, Tenn.) and sophomore Ryan Higgins (Spotsylvania, Va.) as SAC Pitcher of the Week honorees this year.
It’s a well-deserved honor for the freshman after producing Carson-Newman’s first nine inning complete game since 2021. The rookie pitcher needed just 103 pitches to make his way through nine innings on the mound, 72 of which were strikes. He allowed just one run to score on eight hits, without walking a batter and recording four strikeouts. Henderson retired as many as five Wasps in a row throughout the nine inning effort.
To make up his 27 outs recorded, he got 13 fly outs, eight groundouts, one double play and four strikeouts. Over his first seven career appearances, Henderson had not pitched more than 4.2 innings in a game and then managed to go the distance in just his fifth career start.
It was the first complete game by an Eagles pitcher in a midweek non-conference game since April 28, 2015 when Vince Apicella tossed a nine-inning complete game shutout against Trevecca Nazarene. Over the last 25 seasons of Carson-Newman baseball, its just the sixth midweek non-conference complete game in program history. Three of those six occurred in consecutive weekends during the 2002 season.
Three-seeded Carson-Newman begins South Atlantic Conference Tournament play this weekend against sixth-seeded Wingate. First pitch on Friday afternoon in Hickory, North Carolina is at 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.