ITHACA, N.Y. – Sophomore Will Simoneit hit a grand slam and senior Paul Balestrieri turned in a gem, working into the eighth inning of a one-hitter to highlight the baseball team's doubleheader sweep of Princeton on Sunday's Senior Day at Hoy Field, 5-1 and 13-1.
 
On a day when Cornell (21-17, 9-11 Ivy League) was celebrating the final home games from 11 seniors, it sent them off in style by locking up the program's first winning season since 2013 and just its fourth winning season since 1991. The Big Red also improved its league win total from last season by two victories, moving into solo possession of third place in the Ivy League Lou Gehrig Division.
 
Game 1: CORNELL 5, PRINCETON 1 (Box Score)
The Big Red erased an early Tigers lead with a five-run sixth inning, punctuated by Simoneit's second grand slam of the season.
 
Consecutive walks by junior Ellis Bitar and senior Tommy Wagner set the table with one out, then junior Dale Wickham hit a come-backer that deflected off the glove of Princeton starter Ben Gross and caromed into no-man's land, loading the bases.
 
Junior Pierre Le Dorze then hit a high pop-up to shallow right field that required a long run from the Tigers' outfielder, but it clanked off his glove to allow Bitar to score the tying run and keep the bases loaded. With closer Ryan Smith warm in the bullpen, Princeton opted to stick with Gross for another batter — and Simoneit promptly hit  towering shot over the wall in left-center to break the game open.
 
Simoneit's grand slam is the Big Red's fourth of the season. In addition to his two, Wagner and Bitar have also hit grand slams after Cornell went without any during the 2015 and 2016 seasons.
 
Senior Scott Soltis earned his second win a five-day spanning, working two innings of flawless relief to end his final collegiate season with a 3-1 record.
 
Junior starter Tommy Morris got a no-decision after five effective innings in which he scattered eight hits, but did not issue any walks and consistently worked out of trouble after the Tigers scored their lone run in the second inning. Princeton led off the fourth with a pair of singles, but Morris induced a groundball double play and a foul out to get out of the jam. He then worked around a leadoff double in the fifth.
 
Game 2: CORNELL 13, PRINCETON 1 (Box Score)
Six Big Red batters had multiple hits, led by a 4-for-4 performance from senior Frankie Padulo, leading an offensive explosion behind a brilliant start from Balestrieri, the team's ace.
 
Balestrieri worked 7 2/3 innings, yielding just an infield hit in the second inning. Of the 23 outs he recorded, 18 were on the ground — the others were two strikeouts, two flyouts and a double-play ball. The Tigers scratched out an unearned run in the eighth, when Balestrieri took the mound again after a lengthy wait while his offense plated six runs in the bottom of the seventh.
 
Cornell pounced early, with back-to-back singles by Krainz and Bitar to lead off the game allowed the former to scored after a pair of groundouts.
 
With two on in the fifth, Bitar then laced a ball to right-center that was misjudged by an outfielder, allowing the ball to go all the way to the wall and result in a two-run triple. Three more came home in the sixth, highlighted by an RBI stand-up triple from Le Dorze, to give Cornell a 6-0 lead before the flood gates opened against three different Princeton pitchers in the seventh.
 
Le Dorze was 3-for-5 with three RBI, just a home run shy of hitting for the cycle. Wickham and Krainz also had three hits apiece, and Bitar was 2-for-2 with three RBI.