Bailey and Gregory earn First-Team honors, as five Eagles make D2CCA All-Region
ANDERSON, S.C. – The honors keep coming for Carson-Newman softball as five made the D2CCA All-Region teams. Macauley Bailey (Cross Plains, Tenn.) and Grace Gregory (White House, Tenn.) made the first team, with Addie Saunders (Radford, Va.), Atiana Stamper (Knoxville, Tenn.) and Malyiah Smith (Knoxville, Tenn.) were second team.
ANDERSON, S.C. – The honors keep coming for Carson-Newman softball as five made the D2CCA All-Region teams. Macauley Bailey (Cross Plains, Tenn.) and Grace Gregory (White House, Tenn.) made the first team, with Addie Saunders (Radford, Va.), Atiana Stamper (Knoxville, Tenn.) and Malyiah Smith (Knoxville, Tenn.) were second team.
Bailey began her Carson-Newman career with a trip to the NCAA Tournament and finished it the same way. The senior has put together another stellar season in her final chapter, batting a career-best .444, totaling seven home runs with 58 RBIs. Her 81 hits were the sixth-most in a single season.
Bailey closed her career with the third-most hits at 272, her .424 batting average and .480 on-base percentage are the sixth highest in program history and is third with a .769 slugging percentage. She is Carson-Newman's all-time leader in home runs and RBIs, and earlier this year set the SAC record for career RBIs against Milligan.
"Macauley had another strong year for us and played yet another defensive position. She has been versatile and successful no matter where she plays," head coach Michael Graves said. "She has several C-N records that will probably stand for a long time. As great as she has been on the field, people don't realize how intelligent that young lady is, she might be better in the classroom than on the field."
In 2026, Bailey recorded her fourth All-SAC honor at a fourth different position, making the first team at first base. This is the fifth All-Region honor of her career after being named NFCA First Team All-Region.
Gregory transferred after a long journey that included three prior stops. Over the last month, the senior was one of the most fearsome bats in the South Atlantic Conference. She closed the year with the third-best batting average on the team, .412, second with 57 RBIs and has blasted a team-best 10 home runs. Her 23 doubles are a single-season record in Carson-Newman history. In conference games, she batted .466 with seven home runs and 28 RBIs. Gregory has put together 18 multi-hit games with 15 multi-RBI efforts. She was named First Team All-SAC at third base for her year.
"The energy and passion she has is contagious, the kid is a born leader. Once she got back into the swing of things, coming off her recovery, she has been almost unstoppable. She comes through in the clutch, she gets things going, and she is a wall on defense," Graves said. "Her commitment to making her teammates better, especially all of our freshmen, has been invaluable to our team on and off the field."
Against Catawba in the first round of the SAC Tournament, Gregory put together a historic performance. The senior was a perfect 5-for-5 with five runs scored and four RBIs. Gregory kick-started the Eagles with a three-run blast in the first and followed that up with four consecutive doubles. She set the program record with four doubles, which also ties the NCAA record for most doubles in a game, tied the program's best mark with five scored and had the second-best single-game total in C-N history with 12 total bases.
Gregory was named First Team All-SAC at third base and Second Team All-Region by NFCA.
Smith burst onto the scene and has put together an outstanding freshman season. She has filled the void left by graduate assistant Hayden Dye at shortstop, winning SAC Freshman of the Year and earning first-team all-conference honors.
"Quite an honor for our little freshman. This is a loaded category in our region, and that speaks volumes about how good she is. I have said numerous times, if there is a better defensive shortstop in our region, I'd like to meet her," Graves said. "She works hard and always wants me to hit more at her. She is as talented as anyone that I have ever coached, she has all the tools."
The Knoxville native tallied 82 hits, the fifth most in a single season at Carson-Newman. She finished fourth on the team with a .402 batting average, adding 23 RBIs, reaching base at a .453 clip. Smith is just as dangerous on the bases, scoring 49 times, second-most on the team and led C-N with 25 stolen bases. The freshman has posted 29 multi-hit games, featuring 11 three-hit performances.
Saunders is a product of endless hard work, continuously improving her game as the season progresses, and was rewarded by making the All-SAC First Team.
"I harp on discipline at the plate and being unselfish for your team. Nobody has bought into that more than Addie Saunders. That's not just me talking because her stats back it up," Graves said. "I'm not taking any credit because I harp on this to all of them. Addie bought in when others have not, did the work, and is now getting rewarded for it. If her teammates want to get better, they need to learn from Addie's success story."
The sophomore is second on the team with a .414 batting average, nearly a whole hundredth from her first year, and has shattered her freshman campaign numbers. She has collected 72 hits, including 13 extra-base hits, totaling 29 RBIs, and has flipped her strikeout-to-walk ratio, cutting her strikeouts in half and doubling her walks. Saunders has reached base safely in 26 of her last 28 games at the dish and has had a career-long 16-game on-base streak this season. The Radford, Virginia, native has 24 multi-hit games, more than tripling her total from last season.
Lastly, Stamper quickly introduced herself as one of the top freshman arms in the South Atlantic Conference. The Knoxville native held opponents to a .208 batting average, the third-lowest mark in Carson-Newman history.
"This is a big-time honor for Atiana. She had a great season and is only going to get better," Graves said. "She has elite spin and the skills to work toward All-American. I know she will work hard over the summer to keep getting better."
She finished the year with 16 wins to go along with a .255 ERA across 156.1 innings pitched, notching 135 strikeouts. She has a pair of 12-strikeout performances, first against Indiana (Pa.) on March 1st and then against Mars Hill on March 28th, becoming the first freshman since Lacie Rinus in 2017 to record multiple double-digit strikeout performances.
Stamper has six outings where she has posted seven or more strikeouts. She finished the year with 13 complete games. She was named TSWA Pitcher of the Week on March 31st, after going 2-0 against Tusculum and Mars Hill with two complete games, 15 innings pitched, allowing two earned runs and striking out 16. She became the first Carson-Newman pitcher to be named First Team All-SAC since Allison Rager in 2019.
These five all-region honors bring the program's all-time mark to 55 players.
