ITHACA, N.Y. — The baseball team will play its first midweek game of the season at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, when it visits Penn State for its final tune-up before the start of Ivy League play. The Nittany Lions will provide play-by-play and live stats from the game through its website, GoPSUsports.com.

SERIES INFORMATION
Cornell at Penn State
SITE: Medlar Field — State College, Pa.
RECORDS: Cornell 9-4, Penn State 9-13
SERIES RECORD: Penn State leads, 34-21
AUDIO: GoPSUsports.com
STATS: GoPSUsports.com
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Probable starters
6:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 29   •   Cornell (RHP Colby Wyatt, 0-0, 40.50)   •   Penn State (RHP Schuyler Bates, 0-0, 5.00)

Cornell game notes (PDF)
Penn State game notes (PDF)

The Big Red, In Brief:
•   Cornell has won its first three series of the season, as well as two of three games at the Spider Invitational in Richmond two weekends ago. The Big Red enters the week as the Ivy League's top team with a standing of 41st in the Ratings Percentage Index.
•   Most recently, the Big Red took three of four games last weekend at Bucknell. Cornell swept the Saturday doubleheader against the Bison, 5-2 and 11-4, with Cole Rutherford hitting home runs in each game. The Big Red then took the opener of Sunday's twin bill, 7-3, before Bucknell scratched out a 1-0 win in the series finale.
•   Tim Willittes tossed a seven-inning complete game in the series opener, and junior Ryan Krainz scored twice after hitting a pair of leadoff doubles.
•   Cornell put up a six-spot in the fifth inning of Game 2 to take control. Jeb Bemiss earned his first collegiate victory with three innings of effective relief.
•   Another crooked number gave the Big Red the edge in the series' third game, this time amounting to five runs in the top of the fifth. Frankie Padulo drove in the game's first run on a two-out single with the bases loaded, then capped the scoring with his first home run of the season.
•   Cornell was held to three hits in the series finale, and a Bucknell home run in the seventh proved to be the difference. The Big Red nearly tied it up in the top of the eighth, but Padulo's drive over the fence in left field was ruled to have drifted just foul.

On Offense:
•   The Big Red bats have been strong in the early going, batting to a .291 clip through 13 games. Junior Ryan Krainz leads the team with a .422 average and .490 on-base percentage, batting exclusively from the 9 hole. Junior Dale Wickham is batting .418 and his 0.69 doubles per game leads the nation and his 1.77 hits per game ranks ninth.
•   Senior Tommy Wagner (.255) started the season on a 12-game hitting streak, which is the Big Red's longest since Spenser Souza during the 2013 season. Wagner has led the team in batting in each of the last two seasons.
•   Senior Cole Rutherford (.288) has three of Cornell's five home runs this season and team-high 15 RBIs. He led the squad with six home runs and 26 RBIs last year.

On The Mound:
•   Freshman Colby Wyatt (0-0, 40.50) is scheduled to make his first collegiate start tonight. Wyatt's only appearance to date came in the March 5 series finale against Navy, when he worked 0.2 innings in the Big Red's 8-5 victory over the Mids.
•   Senior Peter Lannoo (0-0, 5.19, 2 SV) leads the team with five relief outings, and he's tied for the team lead in saves with freshman Jeb Bemiss (1-1, 5.06, 2 SV).
•   Senior Matt Horton and freshman John Natoli have each made four scoreless appearances in relief. Horton earned his first victory of the season on Sunday against Bucknell, tossing three scoreless innings to close out the game.
•   Senior Paul Balestrieri (3-1, 1.03) has been nothing short of terrific through four starts, most recently surrendering just one run in seven innings of work Sunday to take a hard-luck loss to Bucknell. He was named  the Ivy League Pitcher of the Week on March 20 after working into the eighth inning of a win over Michigan State.
•   Senior Tim Willittes (3-0, 3.47) and junior Justin Lewis (0-1, 5.65) are also part of the Big Red's weekend rotation, thus are unlikely to appear in tonight's game.

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).

About Penn State:
•   The Nittany Lions are 9-13 after splitting a four-game series at home over the weekend against Columbia. Penn State is currently 185th in the Ratings Percentage Index.
•   The offense is batting .230, with Jordan Bowersox leading the way with a .349 average, .419 slugging percentage and six stolen bases. Willie Burger is batting .273 and leads the team with three home runs and 20 RBIs.
•   Junior Schuyler Bates (RHP, 0-0, 5.00) is scheduled to face the Big Red and make his first start of the season. He's made eight relief appearances to date, including a scoreless frame Friday in the series opener against Columbia.
•   Dakota Forsyth (3-0, 4.50) and Taylor Lehman (0-3, 7.04) lead the team with 10 relief appearances apiece.

The Series History With Penn State:
•   The Big Red is 21-34 all-time against the Nittany Lions, with tonight's game serving as the first between the squads since a neutral-site matchup at the Papa John's Palm Beach Invitational in 2008.
•   Cornell has won three of the last five games between the teams, including a doubleheader sweep the last time Penn State visited Ithaca in 2003.
•   The Nittany Lions own a 10-game winning streak in games against the Big Red at their home field. Cornell's last victory in State College came on the backend of an April 19, 1995 doubleheader.

Up Next:
•   Cornell will start the Ivy League season while simultaneously making its home debut this weekend. The Big Red hosts a noon doubleheader against Brown on Saturday, April 1, then takes on Yale for a twin bill at noon Sunday, April 2.