RICHMOND, Va. — The baseball team returns to the Old Dominion State this weekend, but will venture a little further south to play three games in the Spider Invitational, hosted by Richmond. The Big Red opens against the Spiders on the first day, then takes on Campbell and Michigan State in a pair of neutral-site games to close out the weekend.

SPIDER INVITATIONAL
SITE: Pitt Field — Richmond, Va.
RECORDS: Cornell 4-2, Richmond 6-9, Campbell 7-10, Michigan State 9-4
VIDEO (Friday only): Atlantic10.com
STATS: Friday   •   Saturday   •   Sunday
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Probable starters
Game 1: 2 p.m. Friday, March 17   •   Cornell (RHP Tim Willittes, 2-0, 3.18)   •   Richmond (RHP Robbie Baker, 1-2, 3.91)
Game 2: 10 a.m. Saturday, March 18   •   Cornell (LHP Justin Lewis, 0-0, 9.82)   •   Campbell (TBD)
Game 3: 10 a.m. Sunday, March 19   •   Cornell (RHP Paul Balestrieri, 2-0, 0.75)   •   Michigan State (TBD)

Cornell game notes (PDF)
Richmond game notes (coming soon)
Campbell game notes (coming soon)
Michigan State game notes

The Big Red, In Brief:
•   Cornell has taken two of three games to won both of its series to start the season. All nine Big Red batters had hits by the fifth inning of last Sunday's rubber game at George Mason, which Cornell won, 9-3.
•   Cornell opened its season by taking two of three games at Navy, the defending Patriot League champion and a winner of 42 games in 2016.
•   The Big Red was 14-24 last season and finished in fourth place in the Ivy League's Lou Gehrig Division with a 7-13 record against the Ancient Eight. It was the first season under the guidance of Dan Pepicelli, the Ted Thoren Head Coach of Baseball at Cornell.
•   Seniors Cole Rutherford (first base) and C.J. Price (utility), and junior Dale Wickham (outfield) all earned All-Ivy League honorable mention last year.

On Offense:
•   Junior Dale Wickham and senior Tommy Wagner have hits in each of the Big Red's six games to date. Wickham was named Ivy League Player of the Week on March 6 after going 9-for-15 with three doubles, four RBI and a stolen base against Navy. He is now batting .519 with six doubles through six games.
•   The Big Red is batting .303 as a team in the early going, with juniors Trey Baur (.462) and Ryan Krainz (.400) right behind Wickham for the team batting lead.
•   Senior Cole Rutherford hit the Big Red's first home run of the season in last weekend's series at George Mason. He led the squad with six home runs and 26 RBIs last year.
•   Wagner led the team with a .341 average in 2016 and .308 average in 2015.
•   The Big Red has drawn 33 walks through six games.
•   Cornell has scored at least one run in top of the first inning in five of six games.

On The Mound:
•   Senior Tim Willittes (2-0, 3.18) has worked into the sixth innings in both of his starts this year. He led the pitching staff with 40 strikeouts and two Ivy League Pitcher of the Week honors in 2016.
•   Senior Paul Balestrieri (2-0, 0.75), who was tied with Willittes for the most starts in Ivy play last year (nine), tossed seven innings without yielding an earned run to win the third games against Navy. He surrendered just three hits; all singles.
•   While junior Justin Lewis (0-1, 9.82) struggled in his last start, he led last year's team in ERA (3.63) and saves (three), with 10 of his appearances in relief.
•   Three of Cornell's four saves so far have come from freshmen — Jeb Bemiss (0-0, 3.38) has two and John Natoli (0-0, 0.00) has the other. They have been used in relief each weekend so far, as have seniors Peter Lannoo (0-0, 6.75, SV) and Scott Soltis (0-1, 8.31).

Making History:
•   Varsity baseball at Cornell started in 1869, so program firsts are few and far between two centuries later — but junior Dale Wickham delivered a big one last year. On May 1 at Princeton, Wickham became the first Big Red player to hit three home runs in a game. To make the feat even more impressive, he did it in his only three at-bats of a seven-inning game to open a doubleheader against the eventual Ivy League champion.

Proceed With Caution:
•   Junior Ellis Bitar has once again been named to the Johnny Bench Award watch list season after being the only Ivy League catcher to appear on the 2016 watch list. The award is given annually to the best catcher in Division I, and Bitar proved his wares last year by batting .288 and throwing out 14 prospective base-stealers — the most among Ivy catchers. Interestingly enough, Johnny Bench once played at Cornell's Hoy Field as a member of the International League's Buffalo Bisons in an exhibition against the Big Red on May 25, 1967.

The Route 96 Connection:
•   Two of the Big Red's top hitters are not only typically near each other in the batting order, they're also from the same town about a 90-minute drive northwest of campus. Senior Tommy Wagner and junior Dale Wickham both hail from Victor, near Rochester, where they played for a perennial high school power which captured the Class AA state title in 2014 (Wickham's senior year).

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. Cole Rutherford had two home runs in that game, plus one in the twin bill's opener. With two home runs today, Cornell would vault its season total to 25 and move into a tie for 10th-most in a single season in program history.

About Richmond:
•   The Spiders improved to 6-9 by taking two of three at home last weekend against Youngstown State. Prior to that, Richmond was swept in three by Texas State and lost a midweek game to Texas before winning March 8 against Incranate Word.
•   Vinny Capra is batting team-best .396 with six doubles and one of the team's two home runs. Daniel Brumbaugh has the other and is batting .344. He leads the squad with 14 runs, seven doubles, three triples and 11 RBI.
•   Robbie Baker (RHP, 1-2, 3.91) is scheduled to start against the Big Red. He has a team-best 26 strikeouts next to just four walks to date.

About Campbell:
•   The Camels split a pair of midweek games against Rider to bring its record to 7-10. Campbell won just one of seven games prior.
•   Campbell has 12 home runs and 40 stolen bases in just 17 games. Freshman Matthew Barefoot leads the team with a .438 average and three home runs and 17 RBI. Senior Drew Butler has drawn 18 walks in 17 games and already has 17 stolen bases.
•   The Camels' starter against the Big Red is to be determined, though RHPs Allan Winans and Ryan Kirk are slated to start the other games this weekend. One possibility would be Tyson Messer (RHP, 3-0, 2.14), who started Tuesday's win vs. Rider.

About Michigan State:
•   The Spartans are coming off a difficult road trip in which they played three games against Top-10 teams, losing to Clemson before dropping a pair of close games to South Carolina. They are now 9-4 on the year.
•   Michigan State is batting .312 as a team. Leading the way is Marty Bechina (.380), who leads the squad in home runs (four) and a .516 on base percentage. Dan Durkin is batting .345 with a team-best 15 RBI. Zach McGuire is batting .340 and seven doubles.
•   The Spartans' starter for Sunday's game is to be determined, though LHP Alex Troop and RHP Mike Mokma are slated to start the weekend's first two games. RHP Ethan Landon (0-1, 7.50) led the team with 15 starts last year and has made four starts so far this year.

Up Next:
•   Cornell continues its early-season travels with four games at Bucknell. The four-game series will take the form of noon doubleheaders on both Saturday, March 25 and Sunday, March 26. The Big Red's final tuneup before the start of Ivy League play with then be Wednesday, March 29 at Penn State.