September 5, 2025

Eagles open home slate with North Greenville

Carson-Newman (0-1) begins its 2025 home slate tomorrow evening when it welcomes in North Greenville (0-1) for a non-conference contest, starting at 5:00 p.m. from McCown Field.

North Greenville

0-2-0, 0-0-0

Carson-Newman

1-1-0, 0-0-0

Final	1	2	T
North Greenville (0-2-0, 0-0-0)	0	1	1
Carson-Newman (1-1-0, 0-0-0)	3	1	4

VIDEO: Carson-Newman vs North Greenville Full Broadcast Replay August 2023

VIDEO: Carson-Newman vs North Greenville Highlights August 2023

C-N Game Notes (PDF)

JEFFERSON CITY, Tenn. – Carson-Newman (0-1) begins its 2025 home slate tomorrow evening when it welcomes in North Greenville (0-1) for a non-conference contest, starting at 5:00 p.m. from McCown Field.

Despite suffering a loss in the season opener, Berna Kabakci (Zeddam, Netherlands) was outstanding for Carson-Newman in goal in the season opener against Union. The junior goalkeeper reset her career-high, making 12 saves in a 1-0 loss to the Bulldogs. 10 of those 12 saves came after halftime. It's just her second career double-digit save game. The 12 saves are now tied for 10th most in a game in program history.

The Eagles managed to outshoot Union in the season opener but came up empty on 17 shots. Dating back to this past season, Carson-Newman has now been shutout in back to back games. It will aim to avoid being shutout in three consecutive games, something that has only happened on one other occasion over the last 13 years.

Carson-Newman has won their home opener each of the past three seasons and are 6-1-1 in home openers under ninth-year head coach Simon Duffy. In each of their last three home opening wins, the Eagles have scored at least four goals. C-N is 46-15-7 when playing within the friendly confines of McCown Field and has outscored its opponents 155-70 since 2017.

Karli Pettitt (Kingston, Tenn.) loves home openers. In Carson-Newman's home opener over the past two seasons, Karli Pettitt has scored a goal in each. She scored her first career goal against the Trailblazers back on August 31, 2023 in the 5-3 win.

The Eagles and Trailblazers have met just twice, with each winning its home game in the series. Tomorrow's match will be the second time in the last three years C-N begins its home slate against NGU. Head coach Simon Duffy's team scored five times in the 2023 opener, scoring four consecutive in the second half to win 5-3. The five goals in that game, all came from players still on C-N's roster, Felicia Frick (Eschen, Liechtenstein), Alba Delgado (Oviedo, Spain), Krista Nielsen (Saurdarkrokur, Iceland) and Karli Pettitt (Kingston, Tenn.)

Strangely enough, North Greenville received one 1st place vote, despite being placed eighth in the 2025 Conference Carolinas preseason poll. NGU received 115 points in the poll. Emma Dennison, Isabella Fidhel and Jaycee Watkins were three players selected as "Players to Watch".

Second-year head coach Katie Crim returns 20 players from a two-win team in 2024. The 2-10-5 record may be deceiving since six of those 10 losses came by just one goal and four of them were 1-0 defeats. Last year's losing season was the first losing season since 2016 and ended a three-year stretch of double-digit win seasons.

Similar to C-N, the Trailblazers will be looking for their first win as well after suffering a 2-1 loss to Lander on Thursday evening. The Bearcats scored in the 30th minute, before an own goal leveled the match at 1 in the 65th minute. The two sides stayed level until there was 22 seconds left and Maddie Leber found the back of the net off a long free kick to lift Lander past NGU in the final seconds.

Shots were hard to come by for North Greenville in that game, attempting just three in the season-opening loss. Its first shot did not come until the 61st minute. Off the bench, Holly Lanter attempted a team-high two shots in 62 minutes.

North Greenville is winless in its past 12 road games, with its last win coming against Erskine on Oct 3, 2023.

First touch is scheduled for 5:00 p.m. A video stream is available with a subscription to FloSports at cneagles.com/flo.