ITHACA, N.Y. —  The baseball team continues its early-season travels with another trip to the Mid-Atlantic Region for a three-game series this weekend at George Mason. The series will feature one game each on Friday, Saturday and Sunday afternoons in Fairfax, Va.

WEEKEND INFORMATION
Cornell at George Mason
SITE: Spuhler Field — Fairfax, Va.
RECORDS: Cornell 2-1, George Mason 5-8
SERIES RECORDS: George Mason leads Cornell, 4-1
VIDEO: Atlantic10.com
AUDIO: Atlantic10.com
STATS: GoMason.com
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Probable starters
Game 1: 2:30 p.m. Friday, March 10   •   Cornell (RHP Tim Willittes, 1-0, 3.18)   •   George Mason (RHP Tyler Zombro, 0-2, 2.81)
Game 2: 2 p.m. Saturday, March 11   •   Cornell (LHP Justin Lewis, 0-0, 4.15)   •   George Mason (LHP Brian Marconi, 1-1, 6.92)
Game 3: 1 p.m. Sunday, March 12   •   Cornell (RHP Paul Balestrieri, 1-0, 0.00)   •   George Mason (RHP Zach Mort, 1-1, 3.15)

Cornell game notes (PDF)
George Mason game notes (coming soon)

The Big Red, In Brief:
•   Cornell opened its season by taking two of three games last weekend 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.
•   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.

On Offense:
•   Junior Dale Wickham was named Ivy League Player of the Week on Monday after going 9-for-15 with three doubles, four RBI and a stolen base last weekend against the Midshipmen. Wickham led the team in runs (24), hits (40), doubles (9), triples (3) and total bases (70) while manning center field last year, making zero errors in all 38 games.
•   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. He hit a triple with three RBI last weekend.
•   Senior Tommy Wagner led the team with a .341 average and .429 on-base percentage in 2016, though he missed 15 of the team's last 16 games due to injury. He also led the team in batting in 2015 (.308).
•   Junior Trey Baur was 4-for-6 with four RBI last weekend despite only having one start.
•   The Big Red drew 21 walks in its three games against Navy.

On The Mound:
•   Cornell returns experienced options in the rotation with several newcomers adding depth to the relief corps.
•   Senior Tim Willittes (1-0, 3.18) started Cornell's Opening Day last weekend after leading the pitching staff with 40 strikeouts and two Ivy League Pitcher of the Week honors in 2016.
•   Senior Paul Balestrieri (1-0, 0.00), 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 rubber game last Sunday against Navy. He surrendered just three hits; all singles.
•   Junior Justin Lewis (0-0, 4.15) led last year's team in ERA (3.63) and saves (three), with 10 of his appearances in relief.
•   Three of Cornell's five relievers used against the Mids are freshmen. Jeb Bemiss and John Natoli each earned four-out saves in their first collegiate appearance

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 was the lone Ivy League catcher to appear on the 2016 Johnny Bench Award watch list, and he has again been nominated for the award this year. 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 George Mason:
•   The Patriots are coming off a two-game midweek home split with Radford. Mason lost two of three over the weekend against visiting Marist.
•   Three regulars and hitting better than .300 through 13 games, led by Logan Driscoll at .346 and his team-leading 14 RBI. Tyler Nelin is hitting .321 with a team-best five doubles, five home runs and .625 slugging percentage.
•   Though winless so far, Game 1 probable starter Tyler Zombro (0-2, 2.81) has quality starts in his last two games. He led the team with 65 strikeouts last season. Lefty Brian Marconi (1-1, 6.92) is slated to start Game 2 with Zach Mort (1-1, 3.15) aligned for Sunday's series finale. Mort was exclusively used as a reliever last year, when he led the team with a 2.55 ERA and had all eight of Mason's saves.

Series History vs. George Mason:
•   The Patriots have won four of five all-time meetings with the Big Red after the teams split a midweek doubleheader on April 1, 2014.
•   The first game featured current senior Tim Willittes' first collegiate start, and current senior Scott Soltis worked a scoreless inning of relief in both ends of the twin bill in his first collegiate action.
•   The only other meetings between the programs came in 2003, with George Mason sweeping a three-game series over two days (5-1,11-4 and 6-2).

Up Next:
•   Cornell will compete in the Spider Invitational next weekend at Richmond, Va. After taking on the host Spiders at 2 p.m. Friday, March 17, the Big Red will play a pair of 10 a.m. games on Saturday, March 18 vs. Campbell and Sunday, March 19 vs. Michigan State.