WEST HAVEN, Conn. — The baseball team played two extra-inning games against the Ivy League team with the best league record to date, but ultimately came up empty with losses of 4-2 and 9-8 on Sunday at Yale Field.
 
Cornell (8-13, 2-4 Ivy League) will return home for its next seven games, starting with a non-league contest against Binghamton at 4 p.m. Wednesday at Hoy Field in Ithaca, N.Y.
 
Game 1: YALE 4, CORNELL 2 (11 inn.) (Box Score)
Brent Lawson hit a walk-off two-run home run with one out in the 11th to end the lengthy opener after Cornell rallied to force extra innings with two runs in the fifth.
 
Sophomore Ellis Bitar was 3-for-5 and hit his first collegiate home run to lead off the fifth inning, cutting Yale's lead to 2-1. The Big Red then drew a pair of walks to chase Bulldogs starter Mason Kukowski, then junior Cole Rutherford stroked a single to center to send junior C.J. Price plateward to tie the game.
 
Senior Michael Byrne delivered a stellar relief outing for the Big Red, summoned from the bullpen with the bases loaded and no outs in the bottom of the fifth. He induced a groundball double play from junior third baseman Tommy Wagner and turned by Ellis, the catcher, then retired the side with a strikeout. All told, Byrne — who also worked in short relief a day prior at Brown — turned in six scoreless, one-hit innings while facing the minimum 18 batters to keep Cornell in the game.
 
The Big Red, however, could not push any more runs across. Cornell drew 10 walks in the game, but left 17 runners on base — including bases-loaded situations in the fifth and eighth innings.
 
Wagner was 2-for-3 with three walks, and senior Jacob Weston and junior Frankie Padulo each had doubles.
 
Game 2: YALE 9, CORNELL 8 (10 inn.) (Box Score)
The Bulldogs rallied for four runs in the bottom of the eighth before junior Austin Wahl — making just his second appearance since joining the team — came on in relief and ended the threat. Yale eventually scored the winner with one out in the 10th after the leadoff batter reached on an error. With the bases loaded and one out, Harrison White drove in the winning run with a single to right-center.
 
Cornell once again stayed patient at the plate, working out 10 walks. Half of those came in the Big Red's second inning, when a wild pitch and an error sent the game's first two runs across. Bitar then smacked a two-run single to left make the score 4-0.
 
Yale chipped away, but freshman Mark Fraser hit an RBI double in the fifth and freshman Josh Arndt drove in two more runs with two-out single with the bases loaded in the seventh. Wagner then hit an RBI double with two outs in the eighth after Price worked out a walk, and Cornell had a 8-4 lead after seven solid innings from junior starter Peter Lannoo.