Baseball Heads to No. 13 Tennessee on Tuesday, Hosts Rider This Weekend

ASHEVILLE, N.C. - UNC Asheville Baseball heads to No. 13 Tennessee on Tuesday (Feb. 17), before hosting Rider in non-conference action at Greenwood Field this weekend.

UNC Asheville (2-2) at No. 13 Tennessee (3-0)

Tuesday, Feb. 17, 2026 | 4 PM | Knoxville, Tenn. | Lindsey Nelson Stadium

SEC Network + | Live Stats | Tickets

About the Bulldogs - The Bulldogs come into the week at 2-2 overall after a weekend split with St. Bonaventure. Asheville is fourth in the league with a .268 team batting average, seventh in the league with a 5.91 team earned run average and sixth in the league with a team .971 fielding percentage. Blaize Johnson is tied for ninth in the league so far with a .500 batting average, while alos ranking fourth in the league with a 1.143 slugging percentage. Johnson is also sixth with a 1.706 OPS through four games, second in the league with seven runs scored and tied for third with hits (seven). Asheville has two pitchers in the top 10 in the conference in opponent batting average, with Drew Turner tied for second (0.67) and Daylinh Nguyen-Brown ninth (.158).

About Tennessee - Tennessee comes into the matchup at No. 13 after a three-game sweep of Nicholls State over opening weekend. Tennessee is sixth in the Southeastern Conference with a .337 team batting average, second in the league with a 1.13 team earned run average and tied for the league lead with a perfect 1.000 fielding percentage. Blaine Brown is tied for fifth in the SEC in batting average at .571, while also ranking third in the conference in slugging percentage at 1.286 and third in OPS at 1.886. Mack Landon is tied for the SEC lead with an ERA of 1.50, while Tegan Kuhns is fourth in the league in opposing batting average at 0.91.

Series History - This will be the 41st all-time meeting between Asheville and Tennessee, with Tennessee leading the all-time series 33-7. Tennessee has won the last 11 meetings in the series.

UNC Asheville vs. Rider (0-0)

Game One | Friday, Feb. 20, 2026 | 3 PM | Asheville, N.C. | Greenwood Field

Game Two | Saturday, Feb. 21, 2026 |   1 PM | Asheville, N.C. | Greenwood Field

Game Three | Sunday, Feb. 22, 2026 | 12 PM | Asheville, N.C. | Greenwood Field

Friday's game will feature Sweet Retreat's food truck on site, while both Saturday and Sunday will feature the drink and BBQ trucks from Six Pigs!

Series Live Stats

About Rider - This weekend will be the first games of the season for the Broncs. The Broncs were picked second in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference, with outfielder Kyle Neri being named Preseason All-Conference.

Series History - This will be only the second all-time meeting between Asheville and Rider, with Asheville winning the only prior meeting 19-4 at Rider back on Feb. 27, 2016.

A reminder that admission to all UNC Asheville Baseball games at Greenwood Field is free courtesy of Ingles!

Baseball Heads to No. 13 Tennessee on Tuesday, Hosts Rider This Weekend

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Players Mentioned

Blaize Johnson

Daylinh Nguyen-Brown

Drew Turner

University of North Carolina Ashville Athletics