Leaders of the Ivy League and 16 games over .500 for just the second year in its 143 years of existence, the Big Red baseball team takes a break from league play for a Tuesday afternoon doubleheader against Siena at Hoy Field. Sophomore outfielder Chris Cruz would also set a program record for home runs in a season with his next roundtripper.
 
SERIES INFORMATION
Siena at Cornell
SITE: Ithaca, N.Y. — Hoy Field
DATE: Tuesday, April 17
TIME: First game at 2 p.m.; second game approximately 30 minutes after completion of first game
LIVE STATS: http://livestats.internetconsult.com/cornell/baseball/
2012 RECORDS: Cornell 24-8-1 (10-2 Ivy); Siena 11-24 (4-5 MAAC)
SERIES RECORD: Siena leads, 17-12-1
LAST MEETING: Cornell won, 9-0, on April 19, 2011 at Loudonville, N.Y.
 
ABOUT THE BIG RED
Cornell started the season 6-0 for the first time since 1906 and hasn't let up since. The Big Red is coming off a series victory over visiting Columbia, taking the first three games of a four-game set at Hoy Field before the team's 10-game winning streak within the Ivy League came to a close in Sunday's nightcap. Cruz had home runs in both of Sunday's games to push his season total to 11, and Tom D'Alessandro had a double and home run in the same two games. On Saturday, the Big Red rallied for a run in the seventh to force an extra inning, then earned the walk-off victory when Ryan Plantier's sacrifice fly plated Brian Billigen in the eighth. It was the sixth time this season Cornell won a game went entering its final at-bat either trailing or tied. The weekend leaves Cornell in sole possession of first place in the Ivy League's Lou Gehrig Division, one game ahead of Princeton and four games clear of Penn and Columbia. Offensively, the Big Red's. 299 batting average is 50th among 291 Division I teams in the country, its .440 slugging percentage is 35th and its .388 on-base percentage is 45th. Six of the Big Red's regular players are hitting .294 or higher, and the team has an average of nearly three extra-base hits per game. The Big Red is also 59th in the nation with an average of 6.5 runs per game. Not to be ignored, Cornell's pitching staff has also been prominent in the early going, having surrendered just five home runs in 33 games and a no-hitter by sophomore Connor Kaufmann to its credit.
 
MORE THAN JUST A LITTLE HISTORY
The Big Red is 16 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 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 11 games still remaining in the regular season, the Big Red has already surpassed its win total from each of the last 22 years. Cornell had 26 victories in the 1984 season, a number only achieved four times in program history. The record is the 29 wins from the aforementioned 1977 season.

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 140-122-1 (.534).
 
ABOUT SIENA
The Saints are 11-24, having gotten back on track after trudging through a difficult early-season schedule and the resulting 2-19 record. Siena opened its home season by taking two of three from Binghamton early this month, then it swept a mid-week doubleheader from Brown on April 4. The only other common opponent between the Saints and Big Red is Canisius. Cornell split a doubleheader with the Golden Griffins on April 4, while Siena lost two of three against them in late March. Most recently, Siena took two of three from Marist over the weekend in Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference play. … John Rooney (.314), primarily batting leadoff, is Siena's lone .300 hitter, also leading the team with 18 RBI and eight stolen bases … Larry Balkwill (.257, three HRs, 16 RBI) is the team's cleanup hitter with a team-leading .396 slugging percentage. Tyler Bell (.245, two HRs, 16 RBI) is the only other Saints player with a home run on the season. … Ryan Poplawski and Justin Brantley are the Saints' primary weekend starters, and Ed Lewicki worked 8.1 innings over the weekend, so they are unlikely to appear Tuesday. Among the remaining Saints pitchers, Matt Gage (0-2, 5.03), James Murray (1-1, 6.65) and Rick Morales (1-2, 12.86) have started three games apiece. Chris Kearney threw 5.2 innings in a start against NYIT on Wednesday. … Out of the bullpen, closer Neil Fryer (2-1, 2.82, four saves) and C.J. Sohl (0-2, 6.83) lead the team with 13 appearances. … Opponents are outscoring the Saints 38-9 in the first inning.
 
SERIES HISTORY vs. SIENA
While the Saints own a 17-12-1 advantange, the teams have enjoyed an even series with three doubleheader splits marking the last three years. Siena was the last team to sweep a doubleheader in the series, taking two on April 22, 2008, but it was a season sweep – the Big Red won its season opener that year against the Saints in Charlottesville, Va. The last time the Big Red swept a doubleheader from the Saints was a pair of one-runs victories, 5-4 and 13-12, to end the season on May 3, 2000.
 
UNHITTABLE
Sophomore RHP 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.
 
DON'T BE FOOLED
Sophomore RHP Connor Kaufmann has a 3.89 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 5-0 with a 2.00 ERA. In three Ivy League starts, Kaufmann Is 2-0 with a 0.89 ERA.

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 11 home runs in 33 games, Cruz is just the third Cornellian to reach double-digits in home runs in a season. He has tied the program record, originally set by Eric Kirby in 1995 and matched in 2002 by Erik Rico. Cruz's 11 home runs leads the Ivy League and is 11th in the nation, five behind Eastern Tennessee's Matthew Scruggs, and his slugging percentage of .659 ranks 32nd.
 
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 45 hits with a gaudy .409 batting average, which ranks first in the Ivy League (by 26 points) and 20th in the country. Billigen also has a .664 slugging percentage, which ranks 28th. Senior Frank Hager has the team's longest active hitting streak at four 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 15 appearances out of the bullpen, and he has seven saves with a miniscule 0.83 earned-run average and opponents hitting just .184 against him. Even though he leads the team with seven 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 Brian McAfee is 5-0 with a sterling 32:5 walk-to-strikeout ratio. Classmate RHP Brent Jones is just one strikeout behind McAfee for the team lead, having tossed three complete games in March.
 
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 for a pivotal four-game set on Saturday and Sunday at Gehrig Division rival Penn before returning to Ithaca for its next home game on Tuesday, April 24 against Binghamton.