ITHACA, N.Y. – The baseball team has added a non-league game against Binghamton, set for 4 p.m. Thursday at Hoy Field. Both teams had doubleheaders washed out by rain earlier in the week, clearing the way for the addition.

GAME INFORMATION
Binghamton at Cornell
SITE: Hoy Field – Ithaca, N.Y.
TIME: 4 p.m.
DATE: Thursday, April 17
RECORDS: Cornell 15-14 (6-6 Ivy League); Binghamton 9-18 (4-7 America East)
SERIES RECORD: Cornell leads, 19-12
LAST MEETING: Cornell won, 6-1, on April 9, 2014 at Vestal, N.Y.
WEBCAST: Ivy League Digital Network
AUDIO: Ivy League Digital Network
LIVE STATS: CornellBigRed.com
 
ABOUT THE BIG RED
Cornell dropped the final three games of a four-game series last weekend at Lou Gehrig Division-leading Penn. The Big Red routed the Quakers in the series opener, 9-0, behind six shutout innings from starter Michael Byrne and eight runs over the final three innings. Matt Hall was 3-for-4 with his sixth double of the season, and junior 1B/OF Ryan Karl, senior 1B Ryan Plantier and freshman 3B Tommy Wagner drove in two runs apiece. Byrne fanned eight while yielded just two walks and four hits over his six innings of work. No Penn runners advanced past second base in the game, but the Quakers responded with a 11-2 victory in the nightcap, followed by 4-2 and 9-2 victories Sunday. … Karl leads the team with a .302 batting average, nine doubles, six home runs, 25 RBI and .575 slugging percentage. … Junior CF JD Whetsel, who had an 11-game hitting streak broken earlier this month, is batting .278 exclusively from the leadoff spot. He has a team-high 18 walks and is second on the team with 11 stolen bases, one behind senior SS Tom D'Alessandro's 12. Whetsel has reached base safely in 28 of 29 games this season… Junior C Matt Hall is batting .278 with just six strikeouts in 78 plate appearances. He is also the Big Red's leading hitter in Ivy play with a .370 average. … The Big Red's pitching staff has a strong 3.47 earned run average. The staff posted a 3.13 ERA last season, which was the best the program had seen since its 2.25 ERA in 1973. … The Big Red has lost just two of its nine series so far this year. It started the year by taking two of three against Navy, then it won the final three games of a four-game set at George Washington before winning two of three at James Madison. After being swept by Sacred Heart, Cornell split doubleheaders with Dartmouth, Harvard, George Mason and Yale. The Big Red then swept Brown on April 6 and defeated Binghamton on April 9 before losing three of four to Penn last weekend.
 
THE HEAD COACH
In his sixth season as the Ted Thoren Head Coach of Baseball at Cornell University, Bill Walkenbach brought the Big Red into the spotlight in 2012 with the program's first league title since 1977 and its first Ivy League title since the circuit added baseball 20 years prior. 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 ninth season as a collegiate head coach, Walkenbach has a career record of 183-163-1 (.529).
 
ABOUT BINGHAMTON
The Bearcats are on a five-game losing streak, including a 6-1 setback against Cornell on April 9 at Binghamton's Varsity Field last Wednesday. The Bearcats' skid started the day prior with a 4-1 loss to Bucknell, then continued with a three-game sweep at the hands of Stony Brook over the weekend. … Senior CF Bill Bereszniewicz is the only player to start all 27 of the team's games, leading the way with a .327 average, 20 runs, three triples and 10 stolen bases. His seven doubles are also tied for the team lead with senior 2B Daniel Nevares. … Sophomore 3B Reed Gamache ranks second on the team with a .291 average across 22 starts. Junior LF Jake Thomas is batting .269 with four of the team's six home runs and a team-high 17 RBI. … Junior RHP Jack Rogalla (3-4, 2.38, CG), sophomore RHP Jake Cryts (2-4, 4.08, CG) and junior RHP Mike Urbanski (2-1, 5.16) comprise the Bearcats' weekend rotation. Freshman RHP Casey Wenzel (0-2, 5.40) has started a pair of games this season, and junior LHP Mike Kaufman (1-1, 6.57), junior LHP Mike Meleski (0-1, 16.20) and freshman RHP/1B Jextin Pugh (0-1, 3.50) have also started one game apiece this season. ... Sophomore RHP/OF Mike Bunal (1-2, 4.41) has two of the team's three saves. He is tied with Pugh for the team lead in pitching appearances with 11.
 
SERIES HISTORY vs. BINGHAMTON
Cornell holds a 19-12 lead in the all-time series after defeating the Bearcats, 6-1, last week at Varsity Field. The game was tied at 1 before junior Kevin Tatum drove in the go-ahead run for the Big Red in the eighth inning, then Cornell tacked on four insurance runs in the ninth. None of the Big Red's seven pitchers threw more than two innings, combining on 11 strikeouts. Sophomore Matt Horton earned the victory with a quiet 1.2 innings of work before junior Kellen Urbon closed it out. The teams first met in 1984, with the Big Red sweeping a doubleheader at Vestal, N.Y.
 
OPPORTUNISTIC WINAWER
Sophomore Jordan Winawer has started the last five games in left field for the Big Red – his first collegiate starts following an injury-washed 2013 season. To say Winawer has made the most of his opportunity is putting it lightly. He was the Big Red's best hitter last week, going 9-for-14 with a double, three runs scored, and two RBIs. For his efforts, he was named the Ivy League Rookie of the Week on Tuesday. He is the first Cornell player to earn the honor since Michael Byrne did so last April – also following a four-game series against Penn.
 
HONOR ROLL
The Big Red had back-to-back Ivy League Players of the Week for the first time since 2001 when senior SS Tom D'Alessandro received the honor March 18 and junior 1B/OF Ryan Karl garnered the award March 25. D'Alessandro's selection was buoyed by a program-record six stolen bases in one game against George Washington. Karl was then 8-for-15 with two doubles and four home runs in the three-game series at James Madison. His last home run was a grand slam with two outs in the top of the ninth to send the series finale to extra innings, which the Big Red won, 14-8. The last time the Big Red had consecutive Ivy League Players of the Week was when Erik Rico won the honor on consecutive weeks in 2001.
 
CATCH ME IF YOU CAN
Cornell was consistently in the Top 50 in the nation last season in stolen bases, finishing up at 1.55 steals per game. While The Big Red is slightly off that pace this season, currently ranking 111th in the nation at 1.10 steals per game as of Monday, the squad's one-two punch at the top of the lineup has wreaked plenty of havoc on the base paths this season. Senior SS Tom D'Alessandro owns the team lead with 12 stolen bases, including a program-record six in a March 9 victory at George Washington. The Big Red had nine steals in that final game against GW, which was just one shy of a program record 10 set in 1952 against a team from nearby Sampson Air Force Base. Junior leadoff hitter JD Whetsel also has 11 stolen bases so far after leading the team with 19 last season en route to All-Ivy Second Team honors. Whetsel has reached base in 28 of 29 games this season and had an 11-game hitting streak at one point.
 
BYRNE NOTICE
The Ivy League Rookie of the Year came from Cornell in 2012 (Kellen Urbon), and the Big Red had another good candidate in 2013 with Michael Byrne. Now a sophomore, the left-handed pitcher earned All-Ivy League Second Team honors after seeing a variety of roles last season. With 11 appearances, including three late-season starts, Byrne was 3-2 with a 1.09 ERA, two saves, and an impressive .160 opponents' batting average. Byrne didn't surrender an earned run through three appearances this season before Sacred Heart finally broke through against him March 22. He is currently 3-2 with a 1.33 ERA following his six innings of shutout ball Saturday at Penn. Byrne hasn't surrendered an earned run in his last 14 innings of work. Byrne's 0.48 ERA in Ivy games ranks second behind Yale's Chris Lanham (0.44).
 
JONESIN' FOR A BREAKTHROUGH
Junior RHP Brent Jones generated quite a buzz during the offseason, throwing 96 mph during the team's Scout Day during the fall. Jones was later tabbed at the 95^th-best junior in college baseball, according to Perfect Game USA. He made nine appearances (seven starts) last season for the Big Red, posting a 4-1 record and 3.47 ERA. He is 2-2 with a 2.80 ERA and a team-best 34 strikeouts in 35.1 innings through a team-high seven starts this season.
 
HORTON OR HOUDINI?
Sophomore LHP Matt Horton has proven to be quite the escape artist in his two years coming out of the Big Red bullpen. Horton, who notched his first save of the season Sunday at Brown, stranded all 10 runners he inherited during his freshman season. Just two of 10 inherited runners have scored against Horton this season, giving him a success rate of 90 percent for stranding inherited runners over his collegiate career entering this weekend.
 
WELCOME ABOARD
Senior LHP Zach McCulley made himself right at home on the Big Red pitching staff last season after stops at William & Mary and three junior colleges. The 6-foot-5 lefty locked down a spot in the starting rotation for the Ivy League season and finished the season with a sparkling 1.70 ERA to go with a 4-2 record and just four extra-base hits surrendered in 42.1 innings of work.
 
NOT FAR REMOVED FROM A LITTLE HISTORY
Cornell still has plenty of pieces in place from a special 2012 season. 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 RHPs Connor Kaufmann and Kellen Urbon, who are both still with the team.
 
REMEMBER ME?
Despite missing half the season with an injury, senior RF Chris Cruz led the Big Red in home runs last season with four. But that number is hardly an indication of what the slugger is capable of. 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. He now owns the program's career record with 24 home runs after smashing three home runs earlier this month. His five home runs rank second on the team behind six from junior 1B/OF Ryan Karl, and Cruz's 22 RBI are just three behind Karl's team-leading 25.
 
URBON LEGEND
Junior RHP Kellen Urbon made quite a statement in his 21 appearances as a freshman. 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 had 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. Urbon missed the bulk of the 2013 season due to injury.
 
UNHITTABLE
Senior 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. He missed the bulk of the 2013 season due to injury.
 
UP NEXT
The Big Red will turn its attention back to league play this weekend with a pivotal four-game set against defending Ivy champion Columbia. The series will be played in the form of noon doubleheaders Saturday and Sunday at Hoy Field. Binghamton will then visit Cornell for a second time this season on Tuesday, April 22, continuing the Big Red's eight-game home stand.