The baseball team will try to build on an already-historic season this weekend when it plays a pair of doubleheaders against Princeton. The first twinbill is at noon Friday, serving as Senior Day at Cornell's Hoy Field. The other doubleheader is scheduled for Sunday at Princeton. If the Big Red wins at least one of the games, it will wrap up the Lou Gehrig Division title and two wins would guarantee the right to host the Ivy League Championship Series for the first time in program history.
 
SERIES INFORMATION
Princeton at Cornell
GAME 1 & 2: Friday, April 27
SITE: Ithaca, N.Y. — David F. Hoy Field
TIME: First game at noon; second game approximately 30 minutes after completion of first game
LIVE STATS: http://livestats.internetconsult.com/cornell/baseball/scoreboard.aspx
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Cornell at Princeton
GAME 3 & 4: Sunday, April 29
SITE: Princeton, N.J. — Clarke Field
TIME: First game at noon; second game approximately 30 minutes after completion of first game
LIVE STATS: http://www.goprincetontigers.com/liveStats/liveStats.dbml
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2012 RECORDS: Cornell 28-11-1 (13-3 Ivy); Princeton 17-18 (10-6 Ivy)
SERIES RECORD: Princeton leads, 136-85-2
LAST MEETING: Princeton won, 6-1, on May 1, 2011 at Ithaca, N.Y.
 
ABOUT THE BIG RED
Cornell is coming off its second straight weekend of taking three of four from a Lou Gehrig Division rival after defeating Penn, 3-0, 9-5 and 3-0 before dropping Saturday's nightcap, 4-3. The Big Red then got back its winning ways with a 9-5 victory over Binghamton on Wednesday. Cornell started the season 6-0 for the first time since 1906, then rattled off a 10-game Ivy League winning streak to take a commanding Lou Gehrig Division lead going into the weekend. The Big Red has shown a knack for late-game heroics, having won six games this season entering its final at-bat either trailing or tied. Offensively, the Big Red's. 293 batting average entering the week was 67th among 291 Division I teams in the country, its .424 slugging percentage is 52nd and its .387 on-base percentage is 45th. Four of the Big Red's regular players are currently hitting .317 or higher — seniors Brian Billigen (.376), Frank Hager (.324) and Brandon Lee (.317), and freshman Kevin Tatum (.324). Not to be ignored, Cornell's pitching staff has also been prominent in the early going, having surrendered just five home runs in 40 games and a no-hitter by sophomore Connor Kaufmann to its credit. Kaufmann then became the ninth pitcher in program history to toss two shutouts in the same season, hurling a three-hit blanking of Penn on Saturday.
 
MORE THAN JUST A LITTLE HISTORY
This season is the first time in its 143-year program history that the Big Red has been 17 games over .500. Aside from other points during this season, Cornell's only other time at 16 games above the break-even mark 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 four games still remaining in the regular season, the Big Red has already recorded the second-most wins in a season in its history. Cornell is one off the record of 29 wins, set in the aforementioned 1977 season. … The Big Red has already set a program record for league victories in a season — both in the Ivy League (which began play in 1993) and the EIBL (1930-1992). The team's previous high was 12, which was achieved once in the EIBL (1982) and one in the Ivy League (1998).
 
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 144-125-1 (.535).
 
ABOUT PRINCETON
The defending Ivy League champions have dropped five of their last six games to fall three games behind the Big Red in the Lou Gehrig Division race and back below .500. The offense hasn't lacked over that stretch, but the Tigers surrendered 40 runs over those six games and fell behind early in each loss. … Princeton's probable weekend starters are junior Zak Hermans (RHP, 5-2, 3.50), sophomore Mike Ford (RHP, 3-4, 3.77), junior Matt Bowman (RHP, 3-2, 5.33) and junior Kevin Link (RHP, 3-3, 6.05) — the exact same four starters the Big Red faced in the series last year. Link also had a pair of relief appearances against Cornell in 2010, and Hermans also started against the Big Red that year. Hermans is 2-0 in his two career starts against Cornell, but he's surrendered 12 hits in 11.1 innings and 12 runs (though only six were earned). Hermans and Ford both have ERAs lower than 3.00 in Ivy League play. … The Tigers have only used seven other pitchers on the season, with freshman Nick Donatiello (RHP, 1-0, 3.09) leading relievers in ERA. Senior Ryan Makis (RHP, 1-0, 3.32), sophomore Michael Fagan (LHP, 1-4, 7.57) and sophomore A.J. Goetz (RHP, 0-0, 11.25) all have more than 10 appearances. … Senior C/OF Sam Mulroy ranks third in the Ivy League in batting average, also leading the team in hits (50), doubles (eight), home runs (seven), RBI (30), slugging (.609) and stolen bases (11). Sophomore 2B/RF Alec Keller (.361) also ranks in the Ivy top 10 for hitters. … Bowman and Ford aren't just limited to the mound; they also serve as the Tigers' primary SS and 1B, respectively. Bowman is third on the team with a .311 average, and Ford's 28 RBI is second on the squad. … Freshman C/1B Tyler Servais is batting .349 in Ivy League games.
 
SERIES HISTORY vs. PRINCETON
The Tigers are the second-most frequent opponent for the Big Red in program history, with this weekend's four games pushing the total number of meetings between the squads to 227. The first clash came on May 19, 1888, with Princeton emerging with a 4-0 victory. The Big Red would have to wait until 1896 for its first victory over the Tigers, coming out victorious by a 12-10 score on a May 2 meeting in Ithaca. More recently, Princeton took three of four meetings last year, turning the tables after Cornell won three of four meetings in 2010. The year before that, the teams split their four games between the Big Red won, 9-0, in a tiebreaker for the Lou Gehrig Division title.
 
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 3.27 ERA, but he's been a lot better than even that number would indicate. Throw away his worst start of the year in March at Delaware State and Kaufmann is 6-0 with a 1.67 ERA. In four Ivy League starts, Kaufmann is 3-0 with a 0.66 ERA, including an eight-inning complete game without surrendering an unearned run on April 15 against Columbia and three-hit shutout on April 21 at Penn. The effort against Columbia earned him Ivy League Pitcher of the Week for the second time this season.

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 40 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 just five off the national lead, shared by Eastern Tennessee's Matthew Scruggs and Samford's Brandon Miller.
 
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 47 hits with a .376 batting average and .608 slugging percentage, which rank second and third, respectively, in the Ivy League.
 
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 is closing in on tripling its win total from last season, with an impact freshman class making its mark. Freshman RHP Kellen Urbon leads the team with 18 appearances out of the bullpen, and he has set a program record with nine saves and a miniscule 0.75 earned-run average. Opposing hitters are hitting just .179 against Urbon, but he is more than just a closer. Urbon 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 6-0 with a sterling 35:5 walk-to-strikeout ratio, which ranks 14th in the country. He tossed eight shutout innings with three strikeouts in a 3-0 victory over Columbia on April 15, earning Ivy League Co-Rookie of the Week honors. McAfee took a no-hitter into the fifth inning and yielded just three hits on the day. He followed up that effort by working into the eighth inning Saturday against Penn.
 
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. Ishida then made his first collegiate start on April 17 against Siena, tossing three scoreless innings.

UP NEXT
If the Big Red wins at least one of this weekend's four games against Princeton, it will clinch the Lou Gehrig Division title and advance to the Ivy League Championship Series next weekend against the Red Rolfe Division winner. Cornell can also wrap up home field advantage for the championship series with at least two wins this weekend.