ITHACA, N.Y. — Cornell will play its first Ivy League road games of the season this weekend, when it makes an interdivisional trip to New England for doubleheaders against Brown at noon Saturday and Yale at noon Sunday.
 
WEEKEND INFORMATION
Cornell at Brown/Yale
FORMAT: First game seven innings; second game nine innings
SITES: Murray Stadium — Providence, R.I.; Yale Field — West Haven, Conn.
RECORDS: Cornell 8-9, 2-0 Ivy; Brown 7-13, 1-3 Ivy; Yale 9-18-1, 4-2 Ivy
SERIES RECORDS: Cornell leads Brown, 59-58-2; Yale leads Cornell, 101-72
AUDIO (at Yale): Ivy League Digital Network
STATS (at Brown): Game 1 / Game 2
STATS (at Yale): Game 1 / Game 2
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Probable starters
Game 1 at Brown: Noon Saturday, April 9   •   Cornell (RHP Paul Balestrieri, 1-3, 4.08)   •   Brown (RHP Christian Taugner, 3-1, 2.38)
Game 2 at Brown: ~2:30 p.m. Saturday, April 9  •   Cornell (RHP Tim Willittes, 2-2, 5.61)   •   Brown (RHP Reid Anderson, 0-3, 5.76)
Game 1 at Yale: Noon Sunday, April 10   •   Cornell (LHP Justin Lewis, 1-3, 4.08)   •   Yale (RHP Mason Kukowski, 0-4, 5.46)
Game 2 at Yale: ~2:30 p.m. Sunday, April 10  •   Cornell (RHP Peter Lannoo, 1-2, 9.00)   •   Yale (TBD)

Cornell game notes (PDF)
Brown game notes (PDF)
Yale game notes
 
The Big Red, In Brief:
In its first season under head coach Dan Pepicelli, Cornell swept Harvard last weekend for the first time since 1995. The Big Red also posted six victories in March, including series victories at Wofford and Bucknell. ... Junior Tommy Wagner leads the team with a .359 average, and sophomore Dale Wickham is batting .333. Sophomore Ellis Bitar is now batting .293 with hits in eight of his last nine games. Junior Cole Rutherford leads the squad with four home runs, two triples, 14 RBIs and .556 slugging percentage. He was the Ivy League Player of the Week after stroking three home runs in the series at Wofford. ... Junior Tim Willittes (2-2, 5.61) leads the pitching staff with 31 strikeouts and was twice named Ivy League Pitcher of the Week in March. Senior Michael Byrne (2-1, 3.50) has the lowest ERA among probable starters. Sophomore Justin Lewis (1-3, 4.08) and freshman Adam Saks (0-0, 9.39) both have a team-high eight relief appearances.
 
Breaking Down The Harvard Games:
The Big Red is coming off its first season sweep of Harvard since 1995, posting crooked numbers late in both games of last Saturday's doubleheader at Hoy Field. Junior Cole Rutherford drove in the go-ahead runs in both games. Junior Paul Balestrieri yielded just an unearned run and three hits in a complete game gem to open the day, earning his first victory after Cornell manufactured four runs on just two hits in the sixth inning for a 5-1 victory. Sophomore Justin Lewis and senior Michael Byrne then tossed seven scoreless innings of relief in the the second game, and Cornell rallied from a four-run deficit for a 6-4 victory. Junior C.J. Price hit a solo home run in the sixth and Rutherford's two-run single in the seventh pulled the Big Red ahead for good. Sophomore Ellis Bitar was 2-for-4 with a double.
 
About Brown:
The Bears are 7-13 overall after going 1-3 in their first Ivy League games of the season last weekend. Sophomore Brian Ginsberg drove in three runs with two doubles in last Saturday's first game against Penn, 8-5. The Quakers won the second game, 3-1, and Columbia swept a Sunday doubleheader in New York, 7-3 and 10-2. Brown's game Wednesday at UMass-Lowell was postponed. ... Sophomore Sam Grigo leads the team with a .329 average, three home runs, 16 RBIs and three stolen bases. Junior Josh Huntley is batting .290 and is tied with Ginsberg for the team lead in doubles with five. ... Junior RHP Christian Taugner (3-1, 2.38) is the team's ace, drawing the Game 1 assignment against the Big Red. Sophomore RHP Reid Anderson (0-3, 5.76) is the probable starter for the night cap. Sophomore RHP Dante Bosnic (0-0, 3.00, 2 SV) leads the team with nine relief apperances, issuing just two walks in 18 innings. Brown's team ERA is 5.04.
 
Series History vs. Brown:
The Big Red has won eight of its last nine games against the Bears, including a sweep of last season's doubleheader in Rhode Island, to take a 59-58-2 lead in the all-time series. Junior Frankie Padulo and sophomore Ellis Bitar had three-hit games against the Bears last year, and junior RHP Paul Balestrieri tossed five scoreless innings while fanning five to earn his first collegiate victory April 6, 2014 at Brown. Cornell's first victory against Brown came all the way back on May 7, 1912.
 
About Yale:
The Bulldogs started the weekend by sweeping Princeton on Friday, 6-4 and 6-1, after splitting a Wednesday doubleheader against Fairfield. Yale scorched three-time defending champion Columbia for 23 runs for a sweep last Saturday in New York, but the Bulldogs then dropped a pair of games the next day at Penn, 3-2 and 19-3. ... The Bulldogs have shifted sophomore RHP Mason Kukowski (0-4, 5.46, SV) to start Game 1 against the Big Red and have not announced a starter for the night cap. Possibilities include senior RHP Chris Lanham (0-1, 9.64) and freshman LHP Kumar Nambiar (0-4, 9.28, SV). Freshman LHP Sam Boies (0-0, 5.11) leads the team with 13 relief appearances, and sophomore RHPs Drew Scott (1-1, 9.31) and Tyler Duncan (0-0, 12.75) have appeared 11 times. ... Senior Nate Adams leads the team with a .420 average in half-time duty. The Bulldogs have four players hitting .300 or better, with junior Richard Slenker batting .315 with a league-high 11 doubles. Freshman Simon Whiteman has a league-leading 11 of the team's 35 stolen bases.
 
Series History vs. Yale:
Yale holds a 101-72 lead in the all-time series, though Cornell swept last year's doubleheader to win six of the last eight meetings between the squads. Junior RHP Paul Balestrieri closed out a 7-5 victory in the night cap on March 29 after classmate Tommy Wagner was 3-for-4 with three RBIs and a stolen base. In the Big Red's last visit to Yale Field, senior Michael Byrne worked into extra innings while striking out eight, but took a hard-luck loss when the Bulldogs plated an unearned run in the opener. Senior Jordan Winawer hit a two-run single in the ninth inning to propel Cornell to a 6-4 victory in the second game. The first meeting between the teams came in 1887.
 
Power Surge:
It took the Big Red all 40 games of the 2015 season to hit six home runs, but it took just the day of March 12 to produce seven homers this season. Six of those blasts came in the second game of a doubleheader at Wofford, which set a single-game program record. Junior Cole Rutherford had two home runs in that game, plus one in the twin bill's opener. Cornell's 13 home runs are tied for second-most among Ivy League schools.
 
Byrne Notice:
Senior LHP Michael Byrne surrendered just one earned run in his first two starts this season, then earned a win Saturday with four innings of scoreless relief. Byrne has twice earned All-Ivy League accolades, garnering second-team honors in both his freshman and sophomore seasons. Though he struggled to an inflated ERA last season, he still led the team with 45 strikeouts. Cornell has two other returning All-Ivy winners — both senior Jordan Winawer (2014) and junior Tommy Wagner (2015) have garnered honorable mention.
 
The Route 96 Connection:
The Big Red has two hitters among the Ivy League's top 10 in batting average so far this season — and they're both from the same town about a 90-minute drive northwest on New York state Route 96. Junior Tommy Wagner (.359) and sophomore Dale Wickham (.333) both hail from Victor, near Rochester, where they played for a perennial high school power which captured the Class AA state title in 2014. The only other Upstate New York native on the team is senior pitcher Ryne Veenema (from the Rochester suburb of Fairport).
 
The Hot Bat:
Sophomore Ellis Bitar is batting a team-best .387 over the Big Red's last 10 games, which included an eight-game hitting streak. Cornell's primary catcher was also 3-for-3 in stolen-base attempts over that stretch and gunned down two attempted base-stealers from Big Red opponents.
 
Up Next:
Cornell is currently scheduled to return to non-league action for a single game against visiting Binghamton at 4 p.m. on Wednesday, April 13. The Big Red then kicks off Lou Gehrig division play the following weekend with a four-game home series against Columbia, by way of noon doubleheaders April 16-17.