WASHINGTON, D.C. — Off to its best start in 31 years, the Cornell baseball team heads back to the Mid-Atlantic region this weekend for a four-game series against George Washington. The teams are scheduled to play two doubleheaders beginning at noon — one on Saturday and the other on Sunday. The Big Red is on 20-game stretch of road games to start the season before the Ivy League opener on March 31 against visiting Harvard.
 
SERIES INFORMATION
Cornell at George Washington
SITE: Washington, D.C. — Robert J. Talbot Field (Catholic University)
2011 RECORDS: Cornell 4-0, George Washington 2-8
SERIES RECORD: Cornell leads, 1-0
LAST MEETING: Won, 13-4, on March 23, 1907 at Washington, D.C.
LIVE STATS: www.gwsports.com/sports/m-basebl/
GAMES 1-2: Saturday, March 10, 2012
GAMES 3-4: Sunday, March 11, 2012
TIME: First game at noon; second game approximately 30 minutes after completion of first game
 
ABOUT THE BIG RED
Cornell is coming off its first 4-0 start since 1981, having swept a series March 2-4 against host Maryland-Eastern Shore. While it took the Big Red six games to plate 13 runs last season, it took all of 75 minutes over two-plus innings this season in a 15-4 victory in the first game of the set against the Hawks. Freshman Brent Jones followed up with a rain-shortened, five-inning 7-0 shutout in Saturday's nightcap. Sunday featured much of the same, with the Big Red winning 7-5 and 12-0. Cornell is one of just four undefeated teams remaining among the 291 Division I squads in the country — Gonzaga (11-0), Kentucky (10-0) and Texas-Pan American (8-0) are the others.

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 118-115 (.506).

ABOUT GEORGE WASHINGTON
The Colonials enter this weekend 2-8, having dropped a mid-week contest at William & Mary, 11-1. Both of GW's victories came at the conclusion of three-game series against Army and Duke during trips to North Carolina. … Senior duo Jimmy Best and Stephen Oswald lead the Colonials' offense. Best is hitting a team-leading .429 at the plate with one home run and six RBIs while Oswald leads the team with 14 hits while batting .350 with three doubles and seven RBIs. … The Colonials are surrendering 8.8 runs per game (7.68 earned-run average), while opponents are hitting .306 through the team's first 10 games.
 
VENUE CHANGE
This weekend's games will be played on the campus of Catholic University, because the Colonials' home field — Bancroft Park in Arlington, Va. — is undergoing renovations.

AND THE AWARD GOES TO ...
Senior Brian Billigen was named the Ivy League Player of the Week on Tuesday. 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. His average of 2.50 RBI/game leads the country. It was the first time a Cornellian won the award since Nate David shared the honor with Dartmouth's Nick Santomauro on April 28, 2009.

UNCHARTED TERRITORY
Cornell is 4-0 for the first time since 1981, when it started off its season with a road trip through Texas. With a win in Saturday's opener against George Washington, the Big Red would be 5-0 for the first time since 1950. That year, Cornell won April games against Hobart, Fordham, Penn, Rochester and Harvard to kick off its season before falling to Syracuse on May 3. Going further back, the Big Red had a 9-0 start to its season in 1906.

SAVING THE DAY
Senior Jeeter Ishida earned a save in his first collegiate appearance last weekend, 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.

LEADER OF THE PACK
Cornell's offensive outburst in its first weekend of action has landed it atop the NCAA statistics in batting average (.371), team offense (10.5 runs/game) and triples per game (1.0), and second in slugging percentage (.566). The Big Red has six players hitting .400 or better — sophomore Chris Cruz (.471), junior Brenton Peters (.467), seniors Frank Hager (.462), Brian Billigen (.444) and Brandon Lee (.417), and freshman Kevin Tatum (.400). Not to be undone, the team's pitchers also rank high nationally — 24th in earned-run average (2.40), 33rd in hits allowed/9 inn. (7.2) and 35th in walks allowed/9 inn. (2.7). Freshman Brent Jones and senior Rick Marks both worked five shutout innings in their respective debut starts this season, and relievers Houston Hawley, Roberto Suppa, Jimmy Sikorski and Kellen Urbon all surrendered no earned runs in their appearances last weekend.

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. Cruz is already just one roundtripper away from matching his total from his freshman season.
 
THE HITS KEEP COMING
Three Big Red players have four-game hit streaks heading into this weekend's games at George Washington — sophomore Chris Cruz (eight hits), junior Brenton Peters (seven) and senior Marshall Yanzick (four).

UP NEXT
The Big Red will hit the road for a 10-game Spring Break trip over eight days. Cornell plays a pair of doubleheaders March 17-18 at Delaware State before heading to the Old Dominion State for two games at Virginia Tech and four games at Longwood.