The baseball team takes its best start to the Ivy League schedule into the start of Lou Gehrig Division play this weekend with Columbia visiting for a pair of doubleheaders at noon Saturday and noon Sunday. The Big Red has already more than doubled its win total from last season and is 7-1 in the Ivy League for the first time since the league added baseball as one of its sports in 1993.
 
SERIES INFORMATION
Columbia at Cornell
SITE: Ithaca, N.Y. — Hoy Field
GAMES 1 & 2: Saturday, April 14, 2012
GAMES 3 & 4: Sunday, April 15, 2012
TIME: First game at noon; second game approximately 30 minutes after completion of first game
LIVE STATS: http://livestats.internetconsult.com/cornell/baseball/
2012 RECORDS: Cornell 21-7-1 (7-1 Ivy); Columbia 13-16 (5-3 Ivy)
SERIES RECORD: Cornell leads, 120-95
LAST MEETING: Cornell won, 7-1, on April 17, 2011 at New York, N.Y.
 
ABOUT THE BIG RED
Cornell started the season 6-0 for the first time since 1906 and hasn't let up since. Cornell gave itself sole possession of first place in the Ivy League's Lou Gehrig Division with a pair of doubleheader sweeps last weekend at Brown and at Yale. It was just the third time in the Ivy League's 20 years of baseball in which the Big Red won all four games in a weekend — and the first time Cornell has accomplished the feat on the road. The other two occasions were both at Hoy Field, where the Big Red defeated Penn in four straight April 23-24, 2005 and then two each from Harvard and Dartmouth April 1-2, 1994. Cornell needed some late-game heroics to win all of its games over the weekend, scoring in the final innings of all four contests. Sophomore Tom D'Alessandro scored the winning run in the 11th inning of the first game against Brown. With the Big Red down to its final out the next day at Yale, sophomore Chris Cruz hit a three-run home run to spur an 5-3 victory over the Bulldogs. Cornell then scored four in the top of the ninth in the nightcap to win 8-6. The Big Red bats are a large reason why the team is off to such a hot start. The team's. 312 batting average as of Monday was 17th among 291 Division I teams in the country, its .403 on-base percentage was 12th and its .454 slugging percentage was 15th. Seven of the Big Red's regular players are hitting .303 or higher, and the team has an average of nearly three extra-base hits per game. The Big Red was also 19th in the nation with an average of 7.1 runs per game as of Monday. Not to be ignored, Cornell's pitching staff has also been prominent in the early going, having surrendered just four home runs in 29 games and a no-hitter by sophomore Connor Kaufmann to its credit.
 
MORE THAN JUST A LITTLE HISTORY
Prior to Wednesday's loss to Binghamton, the Big Red was 15 games over .500 for just the second time in the program's 143-year history. The only other time Cornell was in a similar position was in a three-game span in 1977. A 10-7 victory in 12 innings over St. John's on May 26 in the program's first NCAA tournament appearance pulled the Big Red's record up to 28-13. Cornell won the next game, 9-7, vs. UConn, but the season ended after a pair of losses the next day to Temple and St. John's. The Big Red hasn't been to NCAAs since. With 13 games still remaining in the regular season, the Big Red has already surpassed its win total from each of the last 20 years.

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 137-122-1 (.529).
 
ABOUT COLUMBIA
The Lions have won 10 of their last 13 games, including Tuesday's 9-6 non-league victory over St. John's after a weekend split with both Harvard and Dartmouth. Columbia is 211th in the latest run of the Ratings Percentage Index, which is fifth among Ivy League teams (Cornell is 138th, Princeton 156th, Dartmouth 186th and Harvard 194th). … Probable starters are senior Pat Lowery (RHP, 2-4, 3.25), junior Tim Giel (RHP, 2-1, 4.18), sophomore David Speer (LHP, 3-0, 3.82), and junior Stefan Olson (RHP, 1-5, 4.70). Lowery is 1-1 with a 0.92 ERA in three career starts against the Big Red, including a pair of complete games, six walks and 16 strikeouts. Olson is also 1-1 in his career against Cornell. He tossed a complete game shutout last season, but only lasted two innings while yielding four runs in a 2010 start. Giel threw seven shutout innings to earn a win over the Big Red in 2010, but was then shifted to the bullpen last season where he led the team with a 1.71 ERA en route to a second-team All-Ivy selection. … Senior reliever Harrison Slutsky (RHP, 0-1, 2.92) has the best ERA on the squad, and David Spinosa (RHP, 1-4, 4.79) has a team-leading 11 appearances and three saves. … Junior LF Dario Pizzano (.333, 13 2Bs, 1 HR, 22 RBI) is the Lions' leading hitter and was first-team All-Ivy selection last season after leading the team and finishing fourth in the league with a .359 batting average. Other top offensive threats include junior RF Nick Ferraresi (.319, 12 2B, 3 HR, 17 RBI) and switch-hitting senior 3B Jon Eisen (.326, 5 2B, 10 RBI, 8 SB).
 
SERIES HISTORY vs. COLUMBIA
Columbia is the third-most common opponent to the Big Red in program history, with this weekend's four games running the series tally to 219 games. The first meeting between the teams was June 1, 1885, with Cornell securing a 10-4 victory en route to a perfect 12-0 mark for the year. … Columbia won three of the four meetings last season, though the teams are an even 6-6 over the last three years. … This is the 20th season of Ivy League baseball and its scheduling format of having divisional opponents play each four times each year. Over that span, only one sweep has occurred in the Cornell-Columbia series, when the Lions swept doubleheaders April 23-24, 1994 at Hoy Field.
 
UNHITTABLE
Sophomore Connor Kaufmann tossed the program's first no-hitter in nearly 32 years on a dreary Sunday against Dartmouth. He needed just 80 pitches to mow down the Big Green for seven innings on a day in which the mound was under constant repair due to a steady rain. Kaufmann faced the minimum 21 batters, retiring the final 16 consecutively after walks in the first and second innings. No runner advance past first base — the first was doubled off on a flyout to right, then the second was picked off by Kaufmann. For his efforts, Kaufmann became the first Cornellian to be tabbed as the Ivy League Pitcher of the Week since Corey Pappel on April 28, 2009. The last Big Red no-hitter was tossed by Kerry Brooks, Rob Wilson and Doug Petillo against Rochester on April 5, 1989 in another seven-inning affair. The last solo no-hitter for Cornell was April 8, 1979, when Greg Myers worked five innings in a 1-0 victory over Canisius. To find the last Big Red solo no-hitter of at least seven innings, you would have to go back to Larry Rafalski's nine-inning blanking of Hartwick on April 25, 1968.

CRUZ CONTROL
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 nine home runs in 29 games, Cruz has exceeded last season's team-leading total is tied for third in program history for roundtrippers in a season. With one more home run, Cruz would become the first Cornellian to reach double-digits in home runs in a season since Erik Rico hit 11 in 2002 — which is also tied for the program record. Eric Kirby also hit 11 home runs in 1995.
 
THE HITS KEEP COMING
The Big Red has already had two lengthy hitting streaks come and go this season. Senior shortstop Marshall Yanzick had a 19-game hitting streak — which dated back to late 2011 — snapped March 23 at Longwood. Then classmate Brian Billigen had a 16-game hitting streak halted March 31, a stretch that included nine games with multiple hits. Billigen has 40 hits with a gaudy .408 batting average, which ranks 23rd in the country, and a .694 slugging percentage, which ranks 19th. Sophomore Chris Cruz has the team's longest active hitting streak at six games.
 
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 more than doubled its win total from last season, with an impact freshman class making its mark in the early going. Freshman RHP Kellen Urbon leads the team with 13 appearances out of the bullpen, and he has five saves with a miniscule 0.46 earned-run average and opponents hitting just .164 against him. Even though he leads the team with five saves, Urbon is more than just a closer — he pitched five scoreless innings of relief in the Big Red's 11-inning victory over Brown on April 7, with just one runner advancing past first base. … On the starters' side, freshman RHP Brent Jones leads the team with 30 strikeouts and had three complete games in March. Freshman RHP Brian McAfee is 4-0 with a sterling 29:4 walk-to-strikeout ratio.
 
DON'T BE FOOLED
Sophomore RHP Connor Kaufmann has a 4.97 ERA, but he's been a lot better than that number would indicate. Throw away his worst start of the year on March at Delaware State and Kaufmann is 4-0 with a 2.57 ERA.

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 conludes its seven-game homestand with a doubleheader at 2 p.m. Tuesday against Siena before hitting the road for a pivotal four-game set over the following weekend at Gehrig Division rival Penn.