ITHACA, N.Y. —  The baseball team opens the 2017 season with a three-game non-league series this weekend at Navy. The teams play a doubleheader on Saturday before wrapping up the weekend with a single game on Sunday.

WEEKEND INFORMATION
Cornell at Navy
FORMAT: First game seven innings; last two games nine innings
SITE: Terwilliger Brothers Field at Bishop Stadium — Annapolis, Md.
RECORDS: Cornell 0-0, Navy 2-5
SERIES RECORDS: Navy leads Cornell, 48-30
STATS: www.navystats.com
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Probable starters
Game 1: 11 a.m. Saturday, March 4   •   Cornell (RHP Tim Willittes, 0-0, 0.00)   •   Navy (RHP Noah Song, 1-0, 1.38)
Game 2: ~1:30 p.m. Saturday, March 4   •   Cornell (LHP Justin Lewis, 0-0, 0.00)   •   Navy (RHP Kyle Condry, 0-0, 10.80)
Game 3: Noon Sunday, March 5   •   Cornell (RHP Paul Balestrieri, 0-0, 0.00)   •   Navy (RHP George Coughlin, 0-0, 3.95)

Cornell game notes (PDF)
Navy game notes (coming soon)

The Big Red, In Brief:
•   Cornell 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.
•   The Big Red is an experienced squad, boasting 13 seniors and a total 22 upperclassmen among its roster of 35 players. Cornell returns seven of its top nine starting position players and its entire primary rotation from the Ivy League season.
•   Seniors Cole Rutherford (first base) and C.J. Price (utility), and junior Dale Wickham (outfield) all earned All-Ivy League honorable mention last year.
•   In its first season under head coach Dan Pepicelli, Cornell surpassed its win total from 2015. The Big Red swept Harvard for the first time since 1995. Cornell later took three of four games against three-time defending Ivy League champion Columbia.
•   Associate Head Coach Tom Ford returns for his 25th season with the Big Red, while Frank Hager '12 is in his second season on staff after being promoted to assistant coach and recruiting coordinator. Matt Ford joins the Big Red as a volunteer assistant coach.

On Offense:
•   Senior Cole Rutherford led the squad with six home runs and 26 RBIs last year, which was his first since transferring to Cornell from junior college. His eight doubles and two triples were ranked second on the team.
•   Junior Dale Wickham was second on the team with a .290 average, 21 RBIs and .507 slugging percentage. He led the team in runs (24), hits (40), doubles (9), triples (3) and total bases (70) while manning center field and making zero errors in all 38 games.
•   Junior Ellis Bitar batted .288 with a team-high nine stolen bases.
•   Senior Tommy Wagner led the team with a .341 average and .429 on-base percentage, though he missed 15 of the team's last 16 games due to injury. He also led the team in batting in 2015 (.308).

On The Mound:
•   Cornell returns experienced options in the rotation with several newcomers figuring to deepen the relief corps.
•   Senior Peter Lannoo (3-3, 5.15, SV) started last year with three relief appearances and ended it by making seven straight starts — five in which he's worked into at least the seventh inning.
•   Senior Tim Willittes (2-5, 7.46, SV) led the pitching staff with 40 strikeouts and was a two-time Ivy League Pitcher of the Week in 2016. His nine starts were tied for the league lead with senior Paul Balestrieri (2-6, 5.51).
•   Junior Justin Lewis (2-1, 3.63, 3 SV) led last year's team in ERA and saves, with 10 of his appearances in relief.
•   Cornell's three most-used relievers also return in senior Jamie Flynn (15 app, 0-0, 6.50), senior Scott Soltis (13 app, 0-5, 8.35, CG in one of two starts) and sophomore Adam Saks (11 app, 0-0, 9.45).

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.

Proceed With Caution:
•   Junior Ellis Bitar was the lone Ivy League catcher to appear on the 2016 Johnny Bench Award watch list. The award is given annually to the best catcher in Division I, and Bitar proved his wares 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).

Gridiron Gang Saves The Day:
•   Seniors Rob Pannullo and Austin Wahl each earned their first collegiate saves on the same day last year (April 17 in a doubleheader vs. Columbia), which is particularly noteworthy since both walked on to the baseball team after starting their Cornell athletic careers with other teams. Wahl was on the football team's roster his freshman year, and Pannullo is a three-time starting quarterback with the Big Red's sprint football team. Junior outfielder Kyle Gallagher has also joined the baseball team this season after playing quarterback for the Cornell football team.

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. 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 Navy:
•   The Midshipmen dropped two of three in series against N.C. State and Air Force, then suffered an 11-3 loss Tuesday to Georgetown in their home opener.
•   Navy won the Patriot League last season and recorded a program-record 42th victory of the year in the NCAA Raleigh Regional against St. Mary's, though a pair of losses to host N.C. State ended the Mids' season.
•   Sophomore Noah Song (1-0, 1.38) was the Patriot League Rookie of the Year in 2016.
•   Stephen Born is batting .450 and Leland Saile has 10 RBIs through seven games.

Series History vs. Navy:
•   Once league rivals in the Eastern Intercollegiate Baseball League before the Ivy League added baseball to its repertoire, Cornell and Navy have met 78 times in their programs' histories.
•   The Midshipmen hold a 48-30 advantage, though the Big Red took two of three games in a 2014 series in Annapolis.

Up Next:
•   Cornell will continue its season-opening travels with another trek to the Mid-Atlantic region for a three-game series March 10-12 at George Mason.