Box Score (Yale 7, Cornell 2)
Box Score (Yale 5, Cornell 3)

ITHACA, N.Y. -- Marshall Yanzick and Ben Swinford both had three hits on the day, but the Cornell baseball team opened up Ivy League play with a pair of losses to Yale on Saturday. The Bulldogs took the opener, 7-2, before winning game two by a 5-3 margin.

Brian Billigen went 2-for-8 on the day with a pair of runs scored and two driven in, while both Swinford and Yanzick scored once. Brandon Lee also had a pair of hits on the day in three at-bats, driving in a pair in game one.

Jadd Schmeltzer took the loss in game one, working 5.2 innings and allowing five runs on eight hits and five walks while striking out eight. In game two, Taylor Wood took the loss, working seven innings and allowing five runs on nine hits with four strikeouts.

Yale (12-8, 2-0 Ivy) took a 2-0 lead in the third inning of game one off of Schmeltzer, stringing together a pair of walks, a single and a double to plate a pair of runs. The Big Red came storming back, scoring a pair in the bottom of the fourth with Billigen leading off the inning witha  triple and Frank Hager drawing a two-out walk. Lee then lined a double down the line in right, scoring both Billigen and Hager to knot the score at two.

The Bulldogs would take the lead back in the fifth, as a sacrifice fly scored the eventual game-winning run. Yale tacked on four more in the sixth, as the Bulldogs put together five straight hits with two out to score four runs and stretch the lead to 7-2.

In game two, the Bulldogs again jumped out early, scoring a pair of runs in both the first and second innings to take a 4-0 lead. In the fourth, Billigen lined a home run over the wall in left, scorinig a pair, as Cornell cut the deficit to 4-2. Wood settled in after the rough first two innings, allowing only a run in the fifth on a hit-batsman, a stolen base, and a wild pitch to score the fifth run of the game.

Cornell (2-16, 0-2 Ivy) got a run back in the ninth as the Big Red tried to mount a late rally. Swinford led off the inning with a single tor ight, and moved to third on Chris Cruz's one-out double down the line in right. An RBI groundout by pinch-hitter Phil Mullan followed to cut the score to 5-3, and Brenton Peters walked to put runners on the corners, but Tom D'Alessandro hit a come-backer to the pitcher to end the contest.

The Big Red returns to action on Sunday, taking on Brown in a pair of games at Hoy Field, beginning at noon.