The Ivy League Championship Series for baseball will be at Cornell for the first time this weekend, when the Lou Gehrig Division champion Big Red hosts Red Rolfe Division titlist Dartmouth in a best-of-three series at Hoy Field with an NCAA tournament berth on the line. Cornell, which has already tied a program record for victories in a season, is seeking its second Ivy League title and second trip to NCAAs. The first two games of the series will be played starting at noon Saturday, with a third game — if necessary — at 1 p.m. Sunday.
 
SERIES INFORMATION
Dartmouth at Cornell
GAME 1 & 2: Saturday, May 5
SITE: Ithaca, N.Y. — David F. Hoy Field
TIME: First game at noon; second game approximately 30 minutes after completion of first game
OF NOTE: Both games will be a scheduled nine innings. Dartmouth will serve as the home team in the second game
WEBCAST: www.ivyleaguesports.com
LIVE STATS: www.ivyleaguesports.com
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GAME 3 (if necessary): Sunday, May 6
SITE: Ithaca, N.Y. — David F. Hoy Field
TIME: 1 p.m.
WEBCAST: www.ivyleaguesports.com
LIVE STATS: www.ivyleaguesports.com
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2012 RECORDS: Cornell 29-14-1 (14-6 Ivy); Dartmouth 23-16 (14-6 Ivy)
SERIES RECORD: Dartmouth leads, 87-74
LAST MEETINGS: Cornell swept, 2-0 and 5-2, April 1-2 at Ithaca, N.Y.
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TICKETS (per day): $5 adults, $3 children under age 10 and students with valid ID.

Cornell game notes (PDF)
Dartmouth game notes (PDF) (coming soon)

ABOUT THE BIG RED
Cornell is coming off an exhilarating division-clinching victory Sunday at Princeton in which sophomore Ben Swinford cranked a solo home run in the 12th inning to lead the Big Red to a 4-3 victory. Freshman RHP Kellen Urbon tossed 6.1 innings of relief to earn the victory, surrendering no earned runs in his longest collegiate outing. It was just the latest chapter in a season that will go down as one of the best in the program's 143-year history. Cornell started the season 6-0 for the first time since 1906, then rattled off a 10-game Ivy League winning streak. The Big Red has shown a knack for late-game heroics, having won seven games this season entering its final at-bat either trailing or tied — including a perfect 4-0 in extra-inning affairs. The Big Red's 3.69 earned-run average is tops in the Ivy League, as is its seven home runs allowed and .261 opponents batting average. Sophomore RHP Connor Kaufmann tossed a no-hitter against Dartmouth on April 2, then became the ninth pitcher in program history to toss two shutouts in the same season, hurling a three-hit blanking of Penn on April 21. Offensively, the Big Red has four regular players currently hitting better than .300 — seniors Brian Billigen (.355), Brandon Lee (.305) and Frank Hager (.303) and freshman Kevin Tatum (.328).
 
MORE THAN JUST A LITTLE HISTORY
The Big Red's 29 victories is tied for the most in a season in its history, having previously been achieved just once in 1977. This season is the first time the Big Red has ever 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 that very same 1977 campaign. That season, 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. … The Big Red has also 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 its first outright division title since 2005 after leading the team to a shared division title in his debut season in 2009. 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 143-129-1 (.524).
 
ABOUT DARTMOUTH
The Big Green posted a pedestrian 4-4 record through the interdivision portion of the Ivy League schedule before rattling off 10 wins in 12 games against Red Rolfe Division foes to clinch the pennant for the fifth straight season. Dartmouth leads the Ivy League in batting average (.301), slugging percentage (.418) and on-base percentage (.385). Not surprisingly, that offensive surge has largely been what pushed the Big Green down the stretch. Dartmouth is averaging 8.57 runs per game over its last seven contests. … Dartmouth's weekend rotation is exclusively left-handed, with sophomore Mitch Horacek (LHP, 4-2, 4.67), junior Michael Johnson (LHP, 4-1, 4.37), freshman Adam Frank (LHP, 4-1, 4.78) and junior Kyle Hunter (LHP, 2-4, 6.65). While the April 1 game between the Big Red and Big Green was dominated by Connor Kaufmann's no-hitter for Cornell, Horacek pitched very well in the loss. He surrendered two earned runs on four hits through a complete-game six innings. Johnson had a similar line (6ip, 6h, 2er, 2bb, 4k) against the Big Red the following day in a no-decision. … The Big Green has only used six other pitchers on the season, with freshman Thomas Olson (RHP, 1-3, 1.42, 6 saves) leading relievers in ERA. Sophomore Louis Concato (RHP, 4-1, 4.24) is the team's primary mid-week starter, and senior Max Langford (RHP, 2-1, 3.27, one save) and sophomore Mike Dodakian (RHP, 0-3, 5.56, three saves) are frequently used out of the bullpen. … Senior CF Jake Carlson (.398, 2 HR, 18 RBI) and sophomore LF/RF Jeff Keller (.385, 5 HR, 25 RBI) own the two highest batting averages among Ivy League players. Keller is tied for team's home run lead with sophomore 1B Dustin Selzer (.336, 5 HR, 40 RBI), who is also the squad's leading RBI-producer. Senior SS Joe Sclafani (.296, 2 HR, 22 RBI) has a team-leading 13 doubles. … Dartmouth has four switch-hitters on its roster, all of whom are regulars in the lineup — Sclafani, freshman 2B Thomas Roulis, junior C Ryan O'Dowd and senior RF David Turnbull.
 
SERIES HISTORY DARTMOUTH
Cornell and Dartmouth first met in 1906, which just happens to be the last time the Big Red had started the season with just four losses through 18 games. Part of that start was Cornell's two-game sweep of Dartmouth in games played April 10-11, 1906. The Big Green has an 87-72 lead in the season series, but Cornell swept this season's two-game series April 1-2 at Hoy Field. The first game was one for the record books, as sophomore RHP Connor Kaufmann threw a no-hitter to spur the Big Red to a 2-0 victory. After rain pushed the second game of the doubleheader to the following day, senior catcher Brandon Lee was 3-for-4 with a pair of doubles, classmate Frank Hager hit his second home run in as many games, and senior starter Rick Marks worked into the eighth inning in a 5-2 Cornell win.
 
UNHITTABLE
Sophomore RHP Connor Kaufmann tossed the program's first no-hitter in nearly 32 years on April 1 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 4.18 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 6-1 with a 2.72 ERA. In five Ivy League starts, Kaufmann is 3-1 with a 2.35 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 efforts earned him Ivy League Pitcher of the Week honors for the second and third times 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, 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 six off the national lead, shared by Eastern Tennessee's Matthew Scruggs, Samford's Brandon Miller and Southeast Missouri State's Trenton Moses.
 
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 49 hits with a .355 batting average and .565 slugging percentage, which rank sixth and fifth, 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.
 
URBON LEGEND
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 19 appearances out of the bullpen, and he has set a program record with nine saves. His miniscule 0.59 earned-run average ranks second in program history now that he's reached the minimum requirement of 30 innings pitched. Opposing hitters are hitting just .170 against Urbon, but he is more than just a closer. Urbon pitched 6.1 innings of relief without allowing an earned run in the Big Red's division-clinching 12-inning victory over Princeton.
 
CONTROL FREAK
Freshman RHP Brian McAfee is 6-0 with a sterling 38:6 walk-to-strikeout ratio, which ranks 20th 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 with a pair of strong road no-decision efforts April 21 at Penn and Sunday at Princeton.
 
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.
 
CHAMPIONSHIP HISTORY
Four current members of the Big Red have experience playing in the Ivy League Championship Series, having played against Dartmouth for the title in 2009. Senior Brian Billigen batted leadoff in all three games for the Big Red, going 8-for-15 with four runs scored, two runs driven in and his first career home run. Hager was also an offensive force in the series, going 4-for-9 with a double, home run, three runs scored and four RBI. Brandon Lee came on as a substitute in Game 3, and RHP Patrick Lewicki made a relief appearance in Game 2.
 
A SEASON TO REMEMBER
No matter how this season concludes for the Big Red, there have been handfuls of program records set — some more bizarre than others. Here are some of them:
* Brian Billigen has been hit by 28 pitches (career record).
* Chris Cruz has reached twice on catcher's interference (season).
* Ben Swinford has reached on a fielder's choice eight times (season).
* Marshall Yanzick has 173 at-bats (season).

UP NEXT
The winner of the Ivy League Championship Series will have some time to kill before the 64-team NCAA field competes in regional play June 1-4. Each four-team regional is a double-elimination tournament, with the winner moving on to a super regional series the following weekend. Cornell's only NCAA appearance to date was in 1977.