ITHACA, N.Y. -- The Cornell baseball team will close out Ivy League play this weekend when it plays the annual split-site series with Princeton. The Big Red and Tigers will battle in a doubleheader on Friday in Princeton, N.J., before the scene shifts to Cornell's Hoy Field on Sunday for a noon twinbill. Sunday's games will also mark the final home games for the seven seniors the Big Red in 2011.

With the final four games of league play on tap for this weekend, the Ivy League Gehrig Division race has been all but wrapped up, as Princeton's magic number to clinch the divisional crown is one. Any combination of Princeton victories and Penn losses this weekend will give the Tigers their first divisional title since 2006. Cornell, meanwhile, could still finish as high as second with a four-game sweep against Princeton.

Sunday's doubleheader will be the final time in their collegiate careers that the seven seniors of 2011 will play at Hoy Field. Pitchers Jadd Schmeltzer, Corey Pappel, Taylor Wood, Dan Lea and Mike Carroll, along with catcher Mike Lopez and slugger Mickey Brodsky will conclude the home portion of their careers with the game. As sophomores, the group was a part of the Big Red team that finished atop the Gehrig Division for just the second time in program history.

Cornell, which enters the weekend with a 9-27 overall record and a 6-10 mark in Ivy League play, is hitting .257 as a team on the season, led by Marshall Yanzick's .322 batting average. Brodsky (.319), Brian Billigen (.303) and Brenton Peters (.301) are also hitting better than .300 on the season among regular players. Billigen also leads the club in runs scored (28), triples (four) and home runs (eight), while ranking second to Brodsky in runs driven in (24). Brodsky has 26 RBI on the year to go along with a team-best eight doubles and three home runs. Frank Hager and Chris Cruz have also gone deep three times this season.

On the mound, Cornell pitchers have combined for a 6.06 earned-run average and 209 strikeouts in 279.1 innings of work. The three senior starters have worked the majority of those innings, combining for 147.2 innings and collecting 107 strikeouts. Schmeltzer has a 4.20 earned-run average with a 2-4 record in 45 innings, striking out 33, while Wood has a 3-5 mark with a 4.53 earned-run average in 53.2 innings and a team-best 42 strikeouts. Pappel has posted a 5.69 earned-run average in 49 innings, striking out 32. The team's fourth starter is up in the air, with either Lea or Connor Kaufmann the likely candidates. Lea has a 3.67 earned-run average and a 2-1 record with 24 strikeouts in 27 innings, while Kaufmann has a 4.70 earned-run average in 23 innings, posting a 1-1 mark with 12 strikeouts. The bullpen has recorded three saves on the year, with Lea, Houston Hawley and Rick Marks each collecting one.

Princeton enters the weekend with an 18-19 overall mark and a 12-4 record in Ivy League play. The Tigers are batting .268 as a team this season, with three regulars hitting better than .300. Matt Bowman (.313), Sam Mulroy (.312) and Mike Ford (.308) are all above that plateau, with Mulroy leading the squad in home runs (six) and runs batted in (31). Bowman has a team-best 30 runs scored on the season.

Princeton's strength is in its pitching staff, as the Tigers have a 4.98 earned-run average as a unit. Zak Hermans has a team-best 3.16 earned-run average among regular starters, striking out a team-best 41 batters in 51.1 innings of work with a 4-1 record. Matt Bowman has a 2-5 record with a 4.43 earned-run average and 33 strikeouts, while Mike Ford has a 3-3 mark with a 4.56 earned-run average and 27 strikeouts. Like Cornell, Princeton's fourth starter has varied, with each of Kevin Link (0-1, 1.96), Matt Grabowski (2-3, 4.32) and Michael Fagan (1-2, 13.88) each having picked up more than three starts on the year.

Though Princeton holds a 133-84-2 lead in the all-time series against the Big Red, Cornell has had tremendous success against the Tigers during the Bill Walkenbach era. The Big Red took three of four from Princeton in 2010, including a sweep at Cornell's Hoy Field, after taking three of five contests against the Tigers in 2009, including a 9-0 victory in the Gehrig Division tiebreaker.

Notable
- Brian Billigen continues to lead the Ivy League with eight home runs on the season, with five of those coming in league play, a number that ties him with Penn's Greg Zebrack. Should Billigen finish the season as the league leader in that category, he would become the first Cornell player to do so since Brian Kaufmann hit six in 2006.
- Mickey Brodsky needs just seven hits to tie Marlin McPhail's career-leading total of 185 as the new school leader in that category. Brodsky enters the weekend in fifth place all-time, trailing McPhail (185), Mark Smith (184), Erik Rico (183) and Nathan Ford (181).
- Corey Pappel's next start will move him alone into second place in program history in starts at 34. Pappel is currently tied with Nick Bayer (1997-2000) and Steve Huber (1982-1985) with 33 career starts. Joel Nies holds the school record of 38 from 1989-92.