Box Score (Radford 5, Cornell 2)
Box Score (Radford 4, Cornell 3)

RADFORD, Va. -- The Cornell baseball team began its spring break trip on Saturday, dropping a pair of games at Radford in Radford, Va. Despite getting strong starting pitching from Jadd Schmelzter and Taylor Wood, the Big Red offense mustered just 14 hits on the day, losing in the opener 5-2 and falling by a 4-3 margin in game two.

Mickey Brodsky led the Big Red offense on the day, going 3-for-8 with a double and two runs scored, while Brenton Peters hit his first home run of the year. Frank Hager also scored a pair of runs on the day. Cornell slipped to 1-8 on the season with the loss.

Schmeltzer went six innings in the opener, allowing just two earned runs on five hits and a walk while fanning four. Dan Lea worked two innings of relief, allowing one earned run with a pair of strikeouts. In game two, Wood went the distance, surrendering seven hits and allowing three earned runs, walking one and striking out four.

In game one, Radford (11-6) took the lead with a pair of runs in the second inning, getting a run-scoring single and a sacrifice fly to take a 2-0 lead. The Big Red got a run back in the fifth when Hager was hit by a pitch and came around to score on an RBI single by Phil Mullan. The bottom half of the inning saw a pair of Cornell errors turn into a pair of unearned runs, as the Highlanders expanded the lead to 4-1. 

Brodsky scored an unearned run of his own in the sixth, but Radford strung together a pair of two-out singles and a wild pitch to score a run to stretch the margin back up to three.

In game two, the Big Red gave up single runs in the second, third and fourth innings, but it was an unearned run in the eighth inning that staked the Highlanders to a 4-0 lead after eight. From there, Cornell mounted a comeback in the top of the ninth, started by a one-out solo home run from Peters. Brodsky then singled to right-center, and moved to third on a two-out single from Hager. Ben Swinford then drove in Brodsky with a single to center, and Ryan Plantier plated Hager with a single to left, but Marshall Yanzick struck out swinging to end the contest with the tying run on second.

Cornell and Radford will conclude the three-game set on Sunday with an 11 a.m. contest.