ITHACA, N.Y. – Brown swept the baseball team in an Ivy League-opening doubleheader Saturday at Hoy Field.
 
The Bears struck early, then scored five times in the fourth inning to sprint away with a 8-1 victory in the opener. Brown then kept Cornell at arm's length for the entirety of the second game, winning 7-4 to sweep the Big Red for a second straight season.
 
Cornell is back in action at noon Sunday with another Ivy League interdivision doubleheader against Yale at Hoy Field.
 
Game 1: BROWN 8, CORNELL 1 (Box Score)
Brown pounced early, smacking four hits in the first inning to score the first two runs. A Brian Ginsberg home run in the second put the Big Red in a 3-0 hole.
 
Cornell got on the board in the bottom of the second after junior Dale Wickham was hit by a pitch. He moved up a base on each of the first two outs. Junior Pierre Le Dorze then capped a scrappy at-bat with a nubber to the pitcher's right that forced a tough play, and he legged out a single to drive in Wickham.
 
But the Bears blew the game open with five runs in the fourth, aided by the leadoff runner reaching on an error. Sam Grigo hit a two-run single with the bases loaded, then Marc Sredojevic provided the exclamation point with a two-run home run down the line in right.
 
Senior Jamie Flynn worked three innings of hitless relief, fanning four.
 
Game 2: BROWN 7, CORNELL 4 (Box Score)
After an almost identical start to the night cap with Brown again plating two runs in its first at-bat, the Big Red responded with two of its own in the bottom of the first.
 
Junior Ryan Krainz led off with a double that hit third base on its way down the line in left. Smart baserunning allowed him to move up to third on a weak grounder in front of third, then he came home on senior Tommy Wagner's grounder up the middle.
 
Wickham kept the inning going with a double, then senior Cole Rutherford fought back from an 0-2 count and fisted a ball up the middle for a single that drove in Wagner, tying the game at 2. But the Bears came right back with two more runs in the second after an error on a sacrifice bunt set the table.
 
The pitchers then settled down up until Rutherford put a charge into a ball with two outs in the bottom of the sixth. He launched a ball well over the tall wall in the left for his fourth home run of the season, cutting the Big Red's deficit to 4-3.
 
Rob Henry's home run to just left of straightaway center to restore Brown's two-run leading in the top of the seventh, but Cornell answered again. Josh Arndt advanced to second on an error to start the inning, then came around to score when Krainz legged out a close play at first to thwart a potential inning-ending double play.
 
Krainz stole second on the first pitch to junior Ellis Bitar, then advanced to third as Bitar worked a walk to put runners on the corners. But Brown induced a flyout to end the inning.
 
Cornell pushed a potential tying run to third again in the eighth inning after junior Trey Baur reached on an error and pinch runner advanced twice on a pair of wild pitches. Brown right fielder Sam Grigo made a nice sliding catch in the gap to keep that runner stranded.
 
Brown padded the lead in the ninth with a two-run double off the top of the left-field wall by Josh Huntley.