ITHACA, N.Y. — The baseball team will wrap up its season with four games this weekend against Princeton. The unique home-and-home series starts with a doubleheader in New Jersey before shifting back to Ithaca for Sunday's doubleheader and Senior Day at Hoy Field. All four games will be broadcast on the Ivy League Digital Network.

SERIES INFORMATION
Cornell vs. Princeton
FORMAT: Seven innings in the first game; nine innings in the second game of both doubleheaders
GAMES 1 & 2: Noon Friday, April 28; Clarke Field — Princeton, N.J.
GAMES 3 & 4: 10 a.m. Sunday, April 30; Hoy Field — Ithaca, N.Y.
RECORDS: Cornell 19-15, 7-9 Ivy League; Princeton 10-26-1, 5-11 Ivy League
SERIES RECORD: Princeton leads, 146-95-2
VIDEO: Ivy League Digital Network
STATS (Fri.): GoPrincetonTigers.com
STATS (Sun.): CornellBigRed.com
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Probable starters
Game 1 on Friday, April 28 (Noon)   •   Cornell (RHP Tim Willittes, 4-2, 5.80)   •   Princeton (RHP Chris Giglio, 2-3, 5.59)
Game 2 on Friday, April 28 (~2:30 p.m.)  •   Cornell (LHP Justin Lewis, 3-2, 5.13)   •   Princeton (RHP Chad Powers, 1-3, 3.63)
Game 3 on Sunday, April 30 (10 a.m.)   •   Cornell (RHP Tommy Morris, 2-2, 5.13)   •   Princeton (RHP Ben Gross, 3-4, 3.95)
Game 4 on Sunday, April 30 (~12:30 p.m.)   •   Cornell (RHP Paul Balestrieri, 4-4, 2.52)   •   Princeton (RHP James Proctor, 1-5, 6.30)

Cornell game notes (PDF)
Princeton game notes

The Big Red, In Brief:
•   In its second season under the guidance of Dan Pepicelli, the Ted Thoren Head Coach of Baseball, Cornell is 19-15 overall and 7-9 in the Ivy League and has easily surpassed its win total from last season. Despite being decimated by injuries, the Big Red was in Lou Gehrig Division contention up until losing three of four over the weekend against front-running Penn. Cornell needs one win to guarantee itself a winning season.
•   Entering Thursday's games around the country, Cornell was tabbed 107th in the Ratings Percentage Index — which is still highest among Lou Gehrig Division teams and second overall in the Ivy League.

Breaking Down The Week That Was:
•   Ellis Bitar was 3-for-5 with a double, a grand slam and five RBI in the Big Red's 10-2 win Wednesday at Binghamton. Scott Soltis earned the victory with a rare five-inning weekday start, Pierre Le Dorze had a two-run homer, and Tommy Wagner added two RBI.
•   In broad strokes, a matchup of the division's top two teams boiled down to a showdown between the Ivy League's best offense against the league's best pitching staff — and the latter ultimately prevailed. Offense proved to be at a premium in the four-game set at Hoy Field, with Penn winning three of four games. Those results, couple with Columbia's sweep of Princeton, eliminated Cornell from postseason contention.
•   Justin Lewis starred in the second game, delivering Cornell's first nine-inning shutout since 2000 in a 2-0 victory. He needed just 1 hour, 40 minutes to mow through the Quakers' lineup while yielding five hits and no walks while fanning six. The only Penn runner to advance past first base came on a first-inning double. Cornell scored both of its runs in the first inning on RBI singles from Tommy Wagner and Will Simoneit.

On Offense:
•   The Big Red bats are hitting at a .288 clip, which ranks 64th in the nation and second-highest in the Ivy League. Junior Dale Wickham leads with a .383 average, though he has missed the last 13 games due to injury.
•   Junior Ryan Krainz has a .353 average (fifth in the Ivy) with the team lead in stolen bases (seven) and .465 on base percentage that ranks third in the league. He has worked 25 walks against just 13 strikeouts.
•   Senior Tommy Wagner (.301) is batting .447 over the last 10 games and had a 13-game hitting streak snapped over the weekend. He also started the season on a 12-game hitting streak and has led the team in batting in each of the last two seasons.
•   Senior Cole Rutherford (.307) leads the team with seven home runs and 32 RBI, surpassing his team-high totals from those categories last year (6 HR, 26 RBI). He is the older brother of Blake Rutherford, a 2017 first-round draft pick of the New York Yankees.
•   Sophomore Will Simoneit (.292) has four home runs, 21 RBI and a .569 slugging percentage in just 65 at-bats. He has started the last 15 games, primarily at catcher.

On The Mound:
•   Senior Paul Balestrieri (4-4, 2.52) has been the Big Red's ace, having won Ivy League Pitcher of the Week on March 20 after working into the eighth while surrendering just one run against Michigan State. He ranks third in the Ivy League in ERA.
•   Senior Tim Willittes (4-2, 5.80) is tied with Balestrieri for the most victories. He has thrown two of Cornell's three complete games to date.
•   Junior Justin Lewis (3-2, 5.13) is coming off a brilliant five-hit shutout of Penn last Saturday, the Big Red's first nine-inning shutout since 2000. He did not issue any walks in the game, and no Penn runners advanced passed first base following a first-inning double. Tommy Morris (2-1, 5.13) worked a season-high 6.1 innings last Sunday.
•   Senior Peter Lannoo (0-0, 4.19, 8 SV) leads the team with 15 relief outings and leads the Ivy League in saves. He is now tied for second on the program's all-time list for saves in a single season, just one off the mark held by Kellen Urbon from the 2012 season. Lannoo has not allowed any of his 12 inherited runners to score this year.
•   The bullpen has been a strength for the Big Red this season, with senior Jamie Flynn (1-0, 0.59) having only yielded his first earned run of the season in his 10th appearance. Senior Matt Horton (2-1, 2.19) also started his season with seven scoreless appearances. In Horton's career, he's allowed just five of 34 inherited runners to score.

About Princeton:
•   The Tigers improved to 10-26-1 after a win Wednesday at nationally-ranked St. John's. Princeton has been swept in each of its Gehrig Division series to date, first by Penn and then by Columbia last weekend, to fall to 5-11 in Ivy play. The Tigers are 180th in the Ratings Percentage Index as of Thursday.
•   The offense is batting .245, with David Harding leading the team in average (.330) and doubles (nine). He drove in two of Wednesday's run against St. John's, with the other two coming on a home run by Asher Lee-Tyson (.267). Nick Hernandez (.319) has a team-best 22 RBI, and Zack Belski (.244) leads with five home runs.
•   The team's pitching staff has a 6.67 ERA with 169 walks in 298 innings. The weekend rotation consists of Ben Gross (RHP, 3-4, 3.95) and his team-high 39 strikeouts, Chad Powers (RHP, 1-3, 3.63) and a team-leading 44.2 innings, Chris Giglio (RHP, 2-3, 5.59) and James Proctor (RHP, 1-5, 6.30).
•   Ryan Smith (LHP, 1-1, 3.74, 4 SV) leads the team with 19 relief appearances, followed by Eli Kimbell's 12 (RHP, 1-1, 6.20) and 11 from Bryce Keller (RHP, 0-1, 12.10).

Series History vs. Princeton:
•   The Tigers are the second-most frequent opponent for the Big Red in program history, with this weekend's four games pushing the total number of meetings between the squads to 247.
•   The first between the programs came on May 19, 1888, with Princeton emerging with a 4-0 victory. The Big Red would have to wait until 1896 for its first victory over the Tigers, coming out on top of 12-10 score on a May 2 meeting in Ithaca.
•   Princeton won three of the four games last season, though the one Cornell victory featured a historic effort. Dale Wickham became the first player in three centuries of Cornell baseball to hit three home runs in a single 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 Ivy League champion.

Spring Break Bonanza:
•   Making use of its Spring Break, Cornell played a couple mid-week games in Maryland earlier this month — including a historic 27-14 thrashing of Towson on April 5. The offensive output set a modern-era program record for runs in a single game, and Trey Baur also set a program record for hits in a single game, going 6-for-7.
•   Will Simoneit and Tommy Wagner both hit grand slams against Towson, the first for the Big Red since Ryan Karl hit one on March 26, 2014. Simoneit, Wagner and Baur each had five RBI in the game.

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).