WASHINGTON — The baseball team continues its season-opening road trip this weekend with a pair of doubleheaders at George Washington this weekend. It will be the second straight season the Big Red has spent the second weekend of its season playing a four-game set against the Colonials, with Cornell winning three of last year's contests.
 
SERIES INFORMATION
Cornell at George Washington
SITE: Barcroft Park Field #6 — Alexandria, Va.
2012 RECORDS: Cornell 3-1, George Washington 0-9
SERIES RECORD: Cornell leads, 4-1
LAST MEETING: Cornell won three games of a four-game series March 10-11, 2012 (W6-3, W5-1, L4-3, W12-3)
LIVE STATS: www.gwsports.com/sports/m-basebl/
GAMES 1-2: Saturday, March 9, 2013
GAMES 3-4: Sunday, March 10, 2013
TIME: First game at noon; second game approximately 30 minutes after completion of first game
 
ABOUT THE BIG RED
Cornell opened the season at the UMES Tournament, with a pair of wins over host Maryland-Eastern bookending a split with Saint Peter's. It was a good start for a team coming off a historic season. The 2012 season was filled with dramatic victories, marked by a perfect 5-0 mark in extra-inning affairs, as Cornell 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.
 
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 148-133-1 (.527).
 
SERIES HISTORY
Cornell is 4-1 all-time against George Washington, with four of those games coming just last season. With the Colonials' home park undergoing renovations, Cornell and GW squared off at Catholic University's ballpark. The Big Red swept the opening doubleheader to push its record to 6-0 for the first time since 1906. GW responded by winning the first game on the second day before Cornell won the finale to secure a series victory. The only other time the teams have met came all the way back in 1907, when Cornell made its season debut with a 13-4 victory against the Colonials in Washington.
 
ABOUT GW
The Colonials are still searching for their first win under new head coach Gregg Ritchie, having lost their first nine games of the season after a 20-35 mark in 2012. But five of this year's nine losses have come by one or two runs, including two of the three games against Quinnipiac last weekend when the squad was last in action.  … The Colonials are hitting just .176 in the early going, with no regulars batting any better than junior OF Owen Beightol's .233. He led the team in batting average (.309), runs (30), home runs (five) and total bases (83) last season. … Junior INF Brookes Townsend and senior 1B Derek Brown are currently tied for the team lead in RBIs (five). … Standing at 6-foot-7, junior RHP Aaron Weisberg (0-2, 5.06) returns to the rotation, and senior LHP Kenny O'Brien (0-1, 40.50) has made two appearances after serving as the Colonials' primary closer last season. … Junior RHP Luke Staub (0-2, 3.63) and freshman LHP Max Kaplow (0-3, 5.19) have made a team-high three starts apiece.
 
EARLY RETURNS
Through the Big Red's first four games, sophomore C Matt Hall leads the team with six hits and a .400 average. Sophomore OF Kevin Tatum has an on-base percentage of .526 after smacking five hits to go with five walks last weekend in his first collegiate action from the No. 3 spot in the lineup. Junior SS Tom D'Alessandro has made the most of his three hits, driving in a team-high five runs so far. He and senior OF Spenser Souza are also a perfect 2-for-2 on stolen-base attempts. … On the mound, sophomore RHP Brian McAfee had a solid start to his season by pitching seven scoreless innings against Saint Peter's on March 1 before a late Peacocks rally left him with a no-decision. Junior RHP Connor Kaufmann also had a quality start in his first outing, tying McAfee for a team-high six strikeouts. Freshman LHP Michael Byrne and sophomore LHP Eric Upton earned victories last weekend with three-inning relief outings in which they didn't surrender a run.
 
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 loweest 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.
 
CONTROL FREAK
Sophomore RHP Brian McAfee posted a 6-1 record in his collegiate debut, with the lone loss on the season coming against East Carolina in the NCAA Regionals. One of the big keys to his success was a 41:10 strikeout-to-walk ratio. His average of 1.35 walks per nine innings ranked 35th in the nation. McAfee was an All-Ivy League Second Team pick in 2012. His first start of 2013 yielded similar results, as he fanned six while issuing no walks in seven scoreless innings of work.
 
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.
 
UP NEXT
Cornell will its next eight games on the road in a nine-day stretch on its annual Spring Break trip. The trek begins March 16-17 with three games against fellow 2012 NCAA regional qualifier Appalachian State. After a pair of mid-week games at Davidson, the Big Red then concludes the trip with three games at Villanova. Cornell then opens the home portion of its schedule at 2 p.m. on Tuesday, March 26 with a non-league doubleheader against Albany.