With its first Ivy League weekend in its wake, the baseball team returns to non-league play Wednesday with a doubleheader at Canisius. The games kick off a six-game stretch away from home, culminating with the Big Red's first Ivy trip this weekend to Brown and Yale.
 
GAME INFORMATION
DAY: Wednesday, April 4, 2012
TIME: First game at 3 p.m.; second game approximately 30 minutes after completion of first game
SITE: Buffalo, N.Y. — Demske Sports Complex
2012 RECORDS: Cornell 16-5-1, Canisius 16-15
SERIES RECORD: Cornell leads, 9-1
LAST MEETING: Split, on April 23, 1991 at Buffalo, N.Y. Cornell won 10-7, then lost 4-3.
LIVE STATS: www.gogriffs.com/liveStats/liveStats.dbml?DB_LANG=C&DB_OEM_ID=20500
 
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 thrilling opening weekend of Ivy League play, which included rallying from a six-run deficit to defeat Harvard, and then a no-hitter as part of a two-game sweep of four-time defending Ivy League Rolfe Division champion Dartmouth on Sunday and Monday. It's just the second time in the last 17 years that Cornell has won at least three of its first four Ivy League games, and it leaves the team with just one loss in its last nine games (7-1-1). The Big Red bats are a large reason why the team is off to such a hot start. The team's. 318 batting average as of April was 16th among 291 Division I teams in the country. Cornell has seven regular players hitting .300 or higher and an average of 3.18 extra-base hits per game. The Big Red was also 17th in the nation with an average of 7.2 runs per game. Not to be ignored, Cornell's pitching staff has also been prominent in the early going, having surrendered just two home runs in 22 games and a no-hitter by sophomore Connor Kaufmann to its credit.

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 132-120-1 (.524).

ABOUT CANISIUS
The Golden Griffins are 16-15 and riding a stretch of five straight victories and nine wins in their last 10 games. Canisius is coming off a three-game sweep of Rider following mid-week victories against Buffalo and St. Bonaventure. … The Griffs were picked to finish first in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference this season in the coaches' preseason poll, having advanced to the league championship in 2009 and 2010. … Sophomore 1B Jimmy Luppens was named the MAAC Player of the Week on Monday after going 8-for-15 last week. He's hitting .448, but has only started in 15 of the team's 29 games. … Sophomore OF Shane Zimmer leads Canisius' regular players with a .333 average and 29 walks for a very useful .533 on-base percentage. … Senior 3B Drew Pettit has a team-high three home runs and 25 RBI and sophomore INF Jose Torralba has 11 steals on 14 attempts. Both are hitting .308 on the year. … Junior OF Chris Gruarin is hitting .303 with three triples and is 9-for-9 on stolen base attempts. … Canisius used sophomore Garret Cortright, freshman Devon Stewart and junior Billy Martin as starters over the weekend. Of the remaining pitchers, freshman Rohn Pierce (RHP, 1-1, 5.12) has made the most starts with five, and classmate Aaron Casper (RHP, 1-0, 9.00) has also started a pair of games. … Out of the bullpen, sophomore closer Jon Fitzsimmons (RHP, 1-0, 0.82, seven saves) and junior Nathan Linseman (LHP, 3-3, 3.77) are tied for the team lead in appearances with 11. … The Golden Griffins have outscored opponents 23-3 in the first inning.
 
SERIES HISTORY
Cornell and Canisius played each other 10 times over a 13-year span from 1979-1991, with the Big Red winning the first nine meetings before the Golden Griffins secured a 4-3 victory in the second game of a doubleheader on April 23, 1991. The Big Red has scored at least nine runs in each of its last seven victories over Canisius.
 
HITS OPTIONAL
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.

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, then he added two more roundtrippers the following weekend at George Washington. Now up to seven home runs in just 22 games, Cruz has already doubled his total from the 2011 season and is just one homer away from matching last season's team-leading total of eight (held by Brian Billigen).
 
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 this weekend, a stretch that included nine games with multiple hits. He has 35 hits with a gaudy .422 batting average, which ranks 24th in the country. Seniors Brandon Lee and Frank Hager have the team's longest current hit streaks at three games apiece. Lee was 3-for-4 with two doubles in the Big Red's 5-2 win over Dartmouth on Monday, and Hager had home runs in each of Cornell's victories over the Big Green.
 
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 eclipsed its win total from last season, with an impact freshman class making its mark in the early going. RHP Brent Jones has been stellar in his first four collegiate starts, posting a 4-1 record with a 2.35 earned-run average and team-high 30 strikeouts. Only three pitchers in Division I have tossed more than Jones' three complete games already. Freshman RHP Brian McAfee is also undefeated through five starts with a stunning 26:2 walk-to-strikeout ratio. Yet another freshman leads the staff in appearances — RHP Kellen Urbon has surrendered just one earned run in 12 innings while picking up a team-leading four saves. At the plate, freshman Kevin Tatum ranks third on the team with a .348 batting average.

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 again for its first Ivy League trip, playing doubleheaders Saturday at Brown and Sunday at Yale to wrap up the interdivision portion of its Ivy League schedule. Cornell will then return for a seven-game homestand, starting with a non-league contest on Wednesday, April 11 against Binghamton.