PRINCETON, N.J. – Sophomore Dale Wickham hit three home runs, senior Michael Byrne surrendered just two hits in six-plus innings, and junior Tim Willittes earned his first collegiate save in the baseball team's Saturday split with Princeton at Clarke Field. The Big Red won the opener, 4-3, before falling in the night cap, 7-2.
 
Cornell (14-24, 7-13 Ivy League) will wrap up its season with a non-league game at 4 p.m. Wednesday at Binghamton.
 
Game 1: CORNELL 4, PRINCETON 3 (Box Score)
Wickham drove in all four of Cornell's runs with the program's first three-homer game in recent memory. It's also the first time a Big Red player had multiple home runs in a game since junior Cole Rutherford bashed two against Wofford on March 12.
 
Wickham's second homer followed a single by sophomore Ellis Bitar to give the Big Red a 3-1 lead in the third inning. He jumped on the first pitch in his next at-bat, sending another shot over the wall in right field in the sixth inning and Cornell appeared to be in control with a 4-1 lead entering the seventh.
 
Byrne found a groove after yielding two walks in the first and back-to-back doubles in the second inning. He then went through 14 consecutive batters with just two reaching base — both on errors.
 
But Princeton came to life in the seventh. After a leadoff walk and a hit-by-pitch, Cornell summoned Willittes from the bullpen. Pinch hitter Cody Phillips loaded the bases with a single to right, then Asher Lee-Tyson stroked a double down the line to plate two runs. That cut the Tigers' deficit to one run and put the tying run on third and winning run on second with no outs.
 
With the infield in, freshman Josh Arndt made a tremendous defensive play from his post at third base to save the game. Jesper Horsted lined a ball toward the line that would have won the game if not for Arndt's diving catch for the inning's first out. The next batter also got hard contact, but the line drive was right at junior shortstop Frankie Padulo. Willittes then induced a groundout to third by Danny Hoy, one of the Ivy League's top hitters, to end the game.
 
Game 2: PRINCETON 7, CORNELL 2 (Box Score)
Junior C.J. Price was 2-for-3, and freshman Mark Fraser had an RBI double, but the Big Red scored both of its runs in the ninth inning well after the Lou Gehrig Division champion Tigers built a huge lead.
 
Andrew Christie drove in Princeton's first of three runs in the fifth with a double to left. A single put runners on the corners, then a wild pitch plated the second run and — because of the great length to the backstop from home plate at Clarke Field — allowed the other runner to move up all the way to third base. That allowed the third run to score on a groundout.
 
The Tigers threatened to blow the game open in the sixth with three straight walks to load the bases with no outs. Cornell turned to junior Jamie Flynn for his third appearance of the weekend, and he escaped the jam unscathed by striking out the first batter, then inducing a pair of weak pop-ups. Flynn has allowed just four of his 15 inherited runners this season to score.
 
Princeton starter Keelan Smithers earned the win by working into the ninth inning with seven strikeouts. It was just the third time in nine games this season that Cornell lost a game when its opponent started a left-handed pitcher.