Box Score

ITHACA, N.Y. – Sophomore JD Whetsel was 3-for-3 with two doubles and three RBIs, helping the baseball team rally from a five-run deficit for a 8-5 victory over Yale on Sunday. The second game of the doubleheader was postponed due to rain, with 11 a.m. Monday announced as the reschedule date.
 
Cornell (15-6, 3-0 Ivy League) won for the 11th time in its last 12 games, overcoming four errors Sunday. Three of those came in the first inning, helping Yale bat around and storm out to a 5-0 lead. But the Big Red quickly responded by sending 10 men to the plate in the bottom of the first, chasing Yale starter Ben Joseph and scoring five runs of its own to tie the score, 5-5, as ominous skies started to produce light rain.
 
The Big Red loaded the bases with one out, scoring its first run on Ryan Plantier's RBI walk. Junior Ben Swinford drove in the second run with a single to center, keeping the bases loaded. That was all for Joseph, but all three of reliever Chris Moates' inherited runners would come around to score. Whetsel smacked a two-run double to left, scoring junior Chris Cruz and Plantier to make the score 5-4. Kevin Tatum then tied the game with an RBI single to center.
 
Sophomore starter Brent Jones settled down after a rocky first inning, keeping Yale (2-15, 1-2 Ivy) off the board for the final four frames of his outing. Four of the five runs he surrendered were unearned as he improved to 4-0 on the season.
 
The Big Red pulled ahead for good in the third after Tom D'Alessandro executed an athletic 6-6-3 double play to retire Yale in the top half of the inning. Plantier led off with a single up the middle, then moved to second on Swinford's sacrifice bunt. Whetsel then drove Plantier home with his second double of the game, giving the Big Red a 6-5 lead.
 
Cruz hit an RBI double in the fourth and Whetsel scored on senior Conor McCabe's fielder's choice in the fifth. Yale had just two hits over the final six innings of the game. Sophomore reliever Eric Upton entered the game in the sixth, stranded two runners in scoring position and worked a 1-2-3 seventh to lock down his first collegiate save.
 
Intensifying rain then washed out the second game of the Ivy League doubleheader, forcing the nine-inning affair to be pushed back to 11 a.m. Monday.