With its best record through 18 games since 1906, the baseball team will spring into Ivy League play this weekend with its home debut with doubleheaders against Harvard on Saturday and Dartmouth on Sunday. The Big Red is 13-4-1 — the only Ivy team to post a winning record before the beginning of league play.
 
HARVARD SERIES INFORMATION
SITE: Ithaca, N.Y. — David F. Hoy Field
2012 RECORDS: Cornell 13-4-1, Harvard 2-16
SERIES RECORD: Harvard leads, 100-44
LAST MEETING: Split, on April 10, 2011 at Cambridge, Mass. Cornell lost 11-8, then won 18-5.
DAY: Saturday, March 31, 2012
TIME: First game at noon; second game approximately 30 minutes after completion of first game
AUDIOCAST: TBA
LIVE STATS: livestats.internetconsult.com/cornell/baseball
 
DARTMOUTH SERIES INFORMATION
SITE: Ithaca, N.Y. — David F. Hoy Field
2012 RECORDS: Cornell 13-4-1, Dartmouth 3-10
SERIES RECORD: Dartmouth leads, 87-72
LAST MEETING: Dartmouth swept, 3-2 (10 inn.) and 4-2, on April 9, 2011 at Hanover, N.H.
DAY: Sunday, April 1, 2012
TIME: First game at noon; second game approximately 30 minutes after completion of first game
AUDIOCAST: TBA
LIVE STATS: livestats.internetconsult.com/cornell/baseball
 
ABOUT THE BIG RED
Cornell started the season 6-0 and now has just four losses through 18 games for the first time since 1906. The Big Red is coming off its first games north of the Mason-Dixon Line, which came in the form of a 5-2 extra-inning win and rare 3-3 tie at Albany. The Big Red scored four runs in the ninth inning to surge ahead of the Great Danes in the opener, but the extra frames then led to the nightcap's halting after six innings with the score deadlocked. It was Cornell's first tie since 2003. The Big Red bats are a large reason why the team is off to such a hot start. The team's .335 batting average as of March 25 was fourth among 291 Division I teams in the country. Cornell has six regular players hitting .333 or higher and an average of nearly three extra-base hits per game. The Big Red was also ninth in the nation with an average of 7.9 runs per game.

THE HEAD COACH
In his fourth season as the Ted Thoren Head Coach of Baseball at Cornell University, Bill Walkenbach guided the Big Red to a share of its first division title since 2005 in his first season. Named head coach on Aug. 14, 2008, Walkenbach is in his second stint as a coach for the Big Red, having previously served as an assistant coach under current associate head coach Tom Ford from 2003-05. He returned to Cornell after spending three seasons as the head coach at Franklin & Marshall, guiding the Diplomats to an NCAA tournament berth in 2006 and a 69-42 record. Now in his seventh season as a collegiate head coach, Walkenbach has a career record of 129-119-1 (.520). Saturday's first game against Harvard will be the 250th of Walkenbach's head-coaching career.

ABOUT HARVARD
The Crimson is 2-16 heading into Saturday's twinbill, but Harvard enters the weekend on a winning note after a 7-6 victory over Holy Cross on Wednesday. But looks can be deceiving — Harvard's first seven games were all against ranked teams (three at No. 7 Arizona followed by four at No. 19 Stetson), and 12 of the team's 16 losses have come by two runs or fewer. Harvard used 10 different pitchers against Holy Cross in order to keep its arms fresh for this weekend. … Sophomore INF Carlton Bailey leads the team with a .346 batting average. Senior UT Jeff Reynolds (.261) was named to the All-Ivy first team last season. … Among the probable Crimson starters this weekend are junior Joey Novak (RHP, 0-3, 2.55) and senior Brent Suter (LHP, 0-4, 3.47). Sophomore captain Andrew Ferreira (LHP, 0-2, 4.05) has 17 strikeouts in 13.1 innings of work after missing all of the 2011 season with an arm injury, and classmate Sam Dodge (RHP, 0-0, 4.76) has also started a pair of games so far. Despite playing 10 games against ranked opponents so far, Harvard's team ERA is a very respectable 4.25.
 
SERIES HISTORY
The storied series between Cornell and Harvard began in 1887, with the Big Red suffering a season-ending 6-5 loss to the Crimson. Harvard has won 99 more meetings since to take a 100-44 lead in the all-time series, with the teams splitting the season series in 2010 and 2011. The last time the Big Red swept two against Harvard was 1995.
 
ABOUT DARTMOUTH
The Big Green is 3-10 heading into Saturday's doubleheader at Princeton — a rematch of last year's Ivy League Championship Series — but it has also played a demanding non-league schedule to date. Dartmouth opened by getting swept in a three-game set at No. 13 LSU, then it won two of five at Sacramento State before a loss at Cal Poly and three losses at UC Irvine — a team that advanced to the NCAA Super Regionals in 2011. Dartmouth then opened its home season on Wednesday with a 5-2 victory over Division III Amherst. … The Big Green returns two of its four starters from last season, sophomore Mitch Horacek (LHP, 1-1, 6.63) and junior Kyle Hunter (LHP, 0-1, 8.47). Hunter, a second-team All-Ivy selection in 2011, fanned 10 while allowing one run in nine innings of a no-decision against Cornell last season. Junior Michael Johnson (LHP, 1-1, 4.96) and freshman Adam Frank (LHP, 1-1, 8.18) have been the team's other primary starters so far. As a staff, Dartmouth has yielded just 30 walks over 106.1 innings of work. … Junior INF Ennis Coble leads the team in batting average (.326) and runs (eight), while senior OF David Turnbull (.325), sophomore INF Dustin Selzer (.316) and senior OF Jake Carlson (.316) are also hitting above .300. … The Big Green has won the Rolfe Division in each of the last four seasons.
 
SERIES HISTORY
Cornell and Dartmouth first met in 1906, which just happens to be the last time the Big Red started the season with four losses through 18 games. Part of that start was Cornell's two-game sweep of Dartmouth in games played April 10-11. The Big Green has an 87-72 lead in the season series, having won the last three games between the two sides. Cornell's last win was 2-0 in the first game of a doubleheader on April 3, 2010 at Hoy Field.

GO LONG
Sophomore Chris Cruz started his season off with a bang against Maryland-Eastern Shore, smashing two home runs in Saturday's first game en route to a 15-4 victory, then he added two more roundtrippers the following weekend at George Washington. Now up to six home runs in just 18 games, Cruz has already doubled his total from the 2011 season.
 
THE HITS KEEP COMING
Senior Brian Billigen has a 16-game hitting streak heading into this weekend — including nine games with multiple hits. He has 33 hits in 17 of the Big Red's 18 games this season with an astronomical .452 batting average, which ranks among the best in the country. Billigen's hitting streak his actually only second-longest on the team this season — senior Marshall Yanzick had a 19-game hitting streak (which dated back to late 2011) snapped March 23 at Longwood.
 
AND THE AWARD GOES TO ...
Senior Brian Billigen was named the Ivy League Player of the Week on March 6. Batting third in the lineup, Billigen was 8-for-18 (.444) in the four games against Maryland-Eastern Shore with a .833 slugging percentage. He finished the weekend with six runs, two doubles, one triple, one home run, one stolen base and 10 RBI. In the span of two innings in the season-opener, Billigen recorded a three-run triple and a two-run double. In the series finale, he finished a triple shy of the cycle, going 4-for-5 with two runs, four RBIs and a stolen base. It was the first time a Cornellian won the award since Nate David shared the honor on April 28, 2009.
 
FANTASTIC FRESHMEN
Cornell has already eclipsed its win total from last season, with an impact freshman class making its mark in the early going. RHP Brent Jones has been stellar in his first four collegiate starts, posting a 4-0 record with a 1.44 earned-run average and team-high 27 strikeouts. He's also just one of 10 pitchers in Division I to toss three complete games already. RHP Brian McAfee is also undefeated through four starts with a stunning 22:1 walk-to-strikeout ratio. Yet another freshman is tied for the team lead in appearances for a pitcher — RHP Kellen Urbon has surrendered just one earned run in 9.1 innings while picking up a team-leading three saves. At the plate, freshman Kevin Tatum ranks third on the team with a .349 while starting all 18 games so far.

SAVING THE DAY
Senior Jeeter Ishida earned a save in his first appearance on March 3, working four innings of relief in a 15-4 victory over Maryland-Eastern Shore in his first game action since 2009. The Hawaii native was named the Honolulu Star-Bulletin State Player of the Year in 2006 and 2007, helping the Punahou School capture five straight state titles. Ishida appeared seven times as a freshman at Arizona State, then didn't pitch his sophomore season before transferring to Cornell. He had to sit out his junior year as per NCAA transfer rules.

UP NEXT
The Big Red hits the road again for a mid-week doubleheader at Canisius on Wednesday, April 4 before heading out on its first Ivy League trip over the weekend. Cornell will plays doubleheaders Saturday, April 7 at Brown and Sunday, April 8 at Yale to wrap up interdivision portion of its Ivy League schedule.