ITHACA, N.Y. – Sophomore Chris Cruz hit a pair of home runs Sunday, giving him 11 on the season to tie the program record for home runs in a single campaign while helping the baseball team to a doubleheader split with Columbia at Hoy Field. The Big Red won the opener, 5-4, then saw its 10-game Ivy League winning streak end with a 5-1 loss in the nightcap.
 
Cornell (24-8-1, 10-2) still leads the Ivy League's Lou Gehrig Division by one game over Princeton, which also split a Sunday doubleheader. The victory in Sunday's first game made the Big Red 17 games above .500 for the first time in the 143-year history of the program.
 
Cruz's 11 homers ties the program mark, shared with Eric Kirby (1995) and Erik Rico (2002).
 
Game 1 – Cornell 5, Columbia 4 – Box Score
The Lions came out strong with a run in each of the first two innings, but the Big Red did well to keep itself in the game by not letting the innings get out of hand. Columbia left the bases loaded in the first, then couldn't bring a runner from third home with just one out in the second. Freshman Nick Busto was summoned from the bullpen with runners on the corners and one out, escaping the jam with a strikeout and flyout.
 
Cornell's offense took the spotlight from there, batting around and putting up a five-spot in the bottom of the frame. Tom D'Alessandro got the rally started with his second home run of the season, carrying the tall wall in left. Brenton Peters then reached on an error, then came around to score on Marshall Yanzick's double down the left-field line to tie the score at 2.
 
Brian Billigen followed with an RBI single up the middle, bringing Yanzick home. Cruz then delivered a two-run blast to right-center to become just the third Big Red player to ever break double-digits in homers. The inning was also the last of the day for Columbia starter David Speer, who suffered his first loss of the season.
 
Busto earned his first collegiate victory with three innings of relief, fanning five while allowing just one run in the sixth. After a pair of one-out walks, RHP Houston Hawley came on and yielded a single to load the bases. A sacrifice fly drove in the run, making the score 5-3 while pushing the trailing runner to third with two out. But a quick snap throw by Hawley resulted in a side-ending pickoff at first.
 
Freshman Kellen Urbon then earned his seventh save of the season, working around a leadoff double that turned into the Lions' fourth and final run.
 
Game 2 – Columbia 5, Cornell 1 – Box Score
Cruz hit second homer of the day in the second inning, tying the game at 1 with a shot down the right-field line. Columbia responded with Dario Pizzano's two-run home run just out of the reach of Big Red center fielder Billigen in the top of the third to take a 3-1 lead.
 
Lions starter Stefan Olson earned the victory, striking out seven while allowing one run over six-plus innings. But the Big Red didn't go quietly, pushing at least one runner into scoring position in each of the final four frames. In the seventh, Cornell loaded the bases with one out only to see the threat ended with a groundball double play. In the eighth, back-to-back singles with no out appeared to set the stage for another push, but Columbia third baseman Alex Black turned a 5-5-3 double play to quell the threat.
 
The Big Red will wrap up its seven-game homestand on Tuesday with a doubleheader against Siena. First pitch is slated for 2 p.m., with the second game scheduled to start approximately 30 minutes following the conclusion of the first. Cornell then returns to Gehrig Division play with four games over the weekend at Penn.