ITHACA, N.Y. — The baseball team starts its defense of the Ivy League crown this weekend when it plays host to Brown and Yale in a pair of doubleheaders at Hoy Field. Cornell (12-6) has won eight of its last nine games after recording its first seven-game winning streak since 1990 earlier this month.
 
SERIES INFORMATION
Brown at Cornell
SITE: Hoy Field — Ithaca, N.Y.
2013 RECORDS: Brown 2-11 (0-0 Ivy League); Cornell 12-6 (0-0 Ivy League)
SERIES RECORD: Brown leads, 57-54-2
LAST MEETING: Cornell swept a doubleheader on April 7, 2012 (10-9 W, 12-5 W)
LIVE STATS: http://sidearmstats.com/cornell/baseball/scoreboard.aspx
AUDIO: www.ustream.tv/channel/cornellatbat
GAME 1: Noon on Saturday, March 30, 2013
GAME 2: Approximately 30 minutes following the completion of the first game
 
Yale at Cornell
SITE: Hoy Field — Ithaca, N.Y.
2013 RECORDS (not including Saturday's games): Yale 1-13 (0-0 Ivy League); Cornell 12-6 (0-0 Ivy League)
SERIES RECORD: Yale leads, 99-68
LAST MEETING: Cornell swept a doubleheader on April 8, 2012 (5-3 W, 8-6 W)
LIVE STATS: http://sidearmstats.com/cornell/baseball/scoreboard.aspx
AUDIO: www.ustream.tv/channel/cornellatbat
GAME 1: Noon on Sunday, March 31, 2013
GAME 2: Approximately 30 minutes following the completion of the first game
 
ABOUT THE BIG RED
Coming off its first seven-game winning streak since 1990, Cornell salvaged a doubleheader split with Albany in its home opener on Tuesday. The Big Red fell in the first game, 4-1, before rallying for a dramatic 5-4 win in the second game on Ben Swinford's two-run, walk-off home run in the bottom of the seventh inning. The split came on the heels of seven consecutive wins, highlighted by series sweeps of Davidson and Villanova. Junior SS Tom D'Alessandro was the team's leading hitter over the streak, batting .385 with a team-high nine runs, 10 hits, six walks and a slugging percentage of .615. He also hit his first home run of the season. … Sophomore C Matt Hall leads the team with a .309 average and is second on the team with 12 RBIs, two behind junior 1B Ryan Plantier. … Sophomore OF Kevin Tatum has a team-high two homers and 16 walks. Both of his home runs and all five of his RBIs came in the same game — a 10-9 win Tuesday at Davidson. … The Big Red pitching staff has been particularly good of late, sporting a 1.98 earned run average over the last six games. Sophomore RHP Brian McAfee, an All-Ivy League Second Team selection last season, tossed six scoreless innings in a 4-0 win over Villanova last Saturday, then sophomore RHP Brent Jones improved to 3-0 on the season as the pitcher of record in a 3-1 triumph in the series finale on Sunday. Senior RHP Mike Kazley has made three appearances over the stretch, working a total of 4.1 scoreless innings.
 
THE HEAD COACH
In his fifth season as the Ted Thoren Head Coach of Baseball at Cornell University, Bill Walkenbach has brought the Big Red into the spotlight with the program's first league title since 1977 and its first Ivy League title since the circuit added baseball 20 years ago. 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 eighth season as a collegiate head coach, Walkenbach has a career record of 157-135-1 (.538).
 
ABOUT BROWN
While the Bears have a 2-11 record, they also currently sport the second-toughest schedule among the 296 qualifying teams in Division I. Brown's two victories have come against Nicholls State and Gonzaga, while it has been swept in series against nationally ranked LSU, Auburn and Washington State. … Junior OF Daniel Massey leads the Bears with a .396 average. He's hit one of the team's two home runs on the season, with sophomore OF Will Marcal providing the other. Marcal is batting .333 with a team-high seven RBIs and eight runs scored. … The Bears return three of their four primary weekend starters from last season, including senior RHP Heath Mayo (0-2, 9.75), sophomore RHP Dave St. Lawrence (0-2, 7.97) and junior RHP Anthony Galan (0-1, 5.30). Senior RHP Kevin Carlow (0-2, 4.50) has started in all three of his appearances this season, leading the squad with 17 strikeouts. … Senior RHP Kevin Guthrie (0-1, 3.18) has a team-high six appearances out of the bullpen.
 
SERIES HISTORY vs. BROWN
The Big Red's sweep of last year's doubleheader at Brown broke an 11-game losing streak at Murray Stadium and pulled it within three games of evening the all-time series. The Bears hold a 57-54-2 lead, but the Big Red and Bears are even since 2000 in games played in Ithaca, N.Y. The last meetings at Hoy Field came in 2011, when the Big Red won the second game of a doubleheader, 13-8, to secure a split. Cornell's first victory against Brown came all the way back on May 7, 1912.
 
ABOUT YALE (not including Saturday's results)
The Bulldogs have dropped 10 in a row since a 5-2 win over Bucknell on March 13 in Auburndale, Fla. Opponents within the losing streak include Valparaiso, North Dakota State, Long Island, Navy, nationally ranked Virginia (twice) and, most recently, a four-game set against Holy Cross last weekend. Yale was scheduled to play Michigan on Tuesday at Citi Field, home of the New York Mets, but that game was canceled. … Sophomore IF Green Campbell leads the team with a .409 with 22 at-bats in 12 games. While sophomore IF David Toups is hitting .212, he also leads the squad with six runs, one home run and nine RBIs … Junior LHP Rob Cerfolio (0-2, 4.32) is the only returning starter on a staff that graduated ace Pat Ludwig and lost Nolan Becker to the MLB draft after the 2012 season. Freshman RHP Chris Lanham (0-3, 5.31) has also started three games this season, and freshman RHP Chris Moates (0-1, 1.98) leads the team with six appearances and has the team's only save. He made his first collegiate start last weekend.
 
SERIES HISTORY vs. YALE
While Yale holds a 99-68 lead in the all-time series, the Big Red came away from Yale Field with a two-game sweep of last year's games on April 8. Cornell pulled ahead in the final inning of both games, including Chris Cruz's three-run homer in the seventh inning of the opener. The victories snapped a four-game losing streak to the Bulldogs, which included 7-2 and 5-3 defeats on April 2, 2011 in Yale's last visit to Hoy Field. The first meeting between the teams came in 1887.
 
MORE THAN A LITTLE HISTORY
Cornell is coming off a 2012 season which was filled with dramatic victories, marked by a perfect 5-0 mark in extra-inning affairs. The Big Red went 31-17-1 to set a program record for victories, win the Ivy League title and advance to the NCAA Regionals. It was an extraordinary turnaround in just a year's time after the Big Red posted a 10-30 record in 2011. The team's 14-6 record in Ivy League play was also a program high in either the Ivy League or Eastern Intercollegiate Baseball League. Not surprisingly, Cornell mopped up with 11 All-Ivy selections, including a pair of first-team pitchers in Connor Kaufmann, who returns for his junior season, and Kellen Urbon, who returns as a sophomore.
 
CONTROL FREAK
Sophomore RHP Brian McAfee has 16 strikeouts compared to just two walks over his first four starts, which puts him among some of the nation's stingiest pitchers when it comes to issuing free passes. As of Tuesday, McAfee ranked 18th among NCAA Division I pitchers in walks allowed per nine innings (0.79) and 24th in strikeout-to-walk ratio (8.0). While it's a small sample size for this season, this trend is nothing new for McAfee. An All-Ivy League Second Team selection as a freshman last season, he posted a 6-1 record and had a 41:10 strikeout-to-walk ratio. His average of 1.35 walks per nine innings ranked 35th in the nation.
 
SPEED KILLS
Cornell ranked 11th in the nation in stole bases per game (2.38) coming into this week's games. Eight players already have stolen bases for the Big Red, though the lion's share have come from sophomore JD Whetsel and senior Spenser Souza. The duo entered the week tied for 33rd in the country in stolen bases per game (0.56), though Whetsel added two more thefts in Tuesday's doubleheader against Albany to up his season total to 11.
 
AN HONORABLE POSITION
Sophomore JD Whetsel was named The Ivy League's Player of the Week on March 19. He had a breakthrough weekend offensively, helping Cornell to a pair of victories in a three-game series against 2012 NCAA Regional finalist Appalachian State. He was 6-for-11 with seven runs, a pair of extra-base hits, three walks and three stolen bases. One of those extra-base hits was a three-run home run — the first of his collegiate career. Whetsel became the first Big Red player to earn the award since the player he replaced as the starting center fielder, Brian Billigen '12, won the honor on March 2, 2012.
 
UNHITTABLE
Sophomore RHP Connor Kaufmann tossed the program's first no-hitter in nearly 32 years on April 1, 2012 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 last solo no-hitter for Cornell was April 8, 1979, when Greg Myers worked five innings in a 1-0 victory over Canisius. Kaufmann went on to be selected as an All-Ivy League First Team selection.
 
URBON LEGEND
Sophomore RHP Kellen Urbon made quite a statement in his 21 appearances last season. He set a program record with nine saves, and his miniscule 0.47 earned-run average was the lowest ever recorded by a Cornell pitcher who has seen more than 30 innings of action. Not surprisingly, he has reeled in countless awards and honors as a result. Urbon was a unanimous selection as a first-team relief pitcher and was also named the Ivy League Rookie of the Year — the first time a Cornellian has taken the award since head coach Bill Walkenbach did it himself in 1995. He was also a Louisville Slugger Freshman All-American and a National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association's Preseason All-America Third Team selection in December.
 
CRUZ CONTROL
Junior OF Chris Cruz set a single-season program record for home runs in 2012, bashing 12 — the last one coming in walk-off fashion in decisive Game 3 of the Ivy League Championship Series. His historic run actually started at UMES, when he smacked two home runs in the first game against the Hawks. He led the Ivy League in home runs last season, and his average of 0.24 home runs per game ranked 35th in the country. Coming off an injury, Cruz saw his first game action of 2013 in the second game of Tuesday's doubleheader against Albany.
 
UP NEXT
Cornell concludes its eight-game homestand with a non-league doubleheader against Canisius at 2 p.m. on Wednesday, April 3. The Big Red then returns to Ivy League play with a trip to Harvard for two games on Saturday, April 6, then a doubleheader the following day at Dartmouth. The first games of the twin bill against the Big Green will be televised nationally by Fox College Sports.