ITHACA, N.Y. —  The baseball team opens the home portion of its schedule with a doubleheader against Niagara, starting at noon Sunday at Hoy Field. Both games are scheduled to go nine innings.

SERIES INFORMATION
Niagara at Cornell
SITE: Hoy Field — Ithaca, N.Y.
RECORDS: Cornell 1-8, Niagara 4-10
SERIES RECORDS: Cornell leads, 19-1
VIDEO: IvyLeagueNetwork.com
STATS: CornellBigRed.com
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Probable starters
Game 1: Noon Sunday, March 25   •   Cornell (Willittes, RHP, 0-2, 6.75)   •   Niagara (Kolodziejski, RHP, 0-1, 10.38)
Game 2: ~3 p.m. Sunday, March 25   •   Cornell (Urbon, RHP, 0-1, 5.62)   •   Niagara (Eckerson, LHP, 0-1, 4.43)

Cornell game notes (PDF)

Big Red Rewind:
•   Cornell won one of three close games last weekend at Fordham to end a season-opening stretch of nine straight road contests. 
•   Freshman Jason Apostle hit a three-run home run, his first in the collegiate ranks, in the opening game against the Rams — but the home side rallied to force a 10th inning, where it prevailed for a 4-3 victory in Saturday's opener.
•   Cornell turned the tables in the night cap, winning by the same score while requiring the same single extra frame. Apostle drew an RBI walk with two out in the ninth to tie the game, then Kyle Gallagher drove in Ellis Bitar with a one-out single in the 10th. Andrew Ellison worked a quiet 3.2 innings of relief to earn the win.
•   Junior Will Simoneit hit a two-run single in the first and the Big Red carried a 3-1 lead after two innings of the series' rubber game, but the Rams scored four unanswered runs and held on to win with a full-extension diving catch into the gap for the final out with the tying runs on base.

The Long Road:
•   The Big Red started the season with a pair of challenging series on the road against Texas A&M and Duke. While Cornell was swept in both sets, the season opener against the Aggies was a one-run game, 3-2.

The Year That Was:
•   Cornell was 21-17 overall last season with a 9-11 record in the Ivy League, good for a third-place finish in the final year of the Ivy League's Lou Gehrig Division. It represented a seven-win improvement for the squad in its second year under the guidance of Dan Pepicelli, the Ted Thoren Head Coach of Baseball.
•   In its second season while Pepicelli at the helm, Cornell recorded its first winning season since 2013 and just its fourth winning season since 1991. The Big Red also 
improved its Ivy League record by two victories over the year prior.
•   Associate Head Coach Tom Ford returns for his 26th season with the Big Red, while Frank Hager '12 remains assistant coach and recruiting coordinator in his third season on staff. David Anderson joins the Big Red as a volunteer assistant coach.

On Offense:
•   Against especially challenging competition at Texas A&M and Duke, Cornell's bats are off to a slow start with a .180 average. Senior Kyle Gallagher remains hot with a .323 average and .462 on base percentage, thanks to a team-high eight walks.
•   Senior Ryan Krainz (.278) is tied with Gallagher for the team lead in hits with 10, including six in last weekend's series at Fordham. Arriving via transfer last year, Krainz was just Cornell's second All-Ivy League first team selection in the last six years after recording a .478 on base percentage that ranked 16th in the country, and he also led the team with seven steals.
•   Senior Trey Baur was 4-for-8 with a double in two games against Fordham.
•   The Big Red led the Ivy League last year with a .295 average — its best since 2009 and 42th-best in the country. Six of the returning batters hit .284 or better last year.

On The Mound:
•   Fifth-year senior Tim Willittes (0-2, 6.75) is coming off a strong outing against Fordham in which he yielded just one earned run (three total) while working into the eighth inning. He returns to the rotation after being granted a medical redshirt by the Ivy League after missing the 2015 season. He has been a work horse ever since, making 21 starts over the last two-plus seasons.
•   Sophomore Seth Urbon (0-1, 5.62) has entered the rotation in his first year with the Big Red after transferring from Georgia Tech. He struck out seven in a no-decision against Fordham. He is the younger brother of former Cornell standout Kellon Urbon '15. 
•   Though a senior, Tyler Fernandez (0-1, 9.72) is making his collegiate debut this year. He missed the last three years rehabilitating injuries.
•   Senior Tommy Morris (2-2, 4.60) started all six of his appearances last season after joining the team via transfer from Division III Kenyon. He was the Big Red's most effective starter in the season-opening series at Texas A&M, but has not pitched since.
•   Sophomores Colby Wyatt (0-1, 1.35) and Andrew Ellison (1-0, 2.84) have emerged as two of the team's top bullpen arms in the early going. Wyatt has 10 strikeouts in just 6.2 innings, and Ellison earned his victory in 3.2 innings of scoreless relief last Saturday at Fordham. 

Making History:
•   Varsity baseball at Cornell started in 1869, so program firsts are few and far between two centuries later — but seniors Dale Wickham and Trey Baur have provided a couple over the last two years. 
•   On May 1, 2016, 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 at Princeton.
•   On April 5, 2017, Baur was at the forefront of Cornell's 27-14 lambasting of Towson. He was 6-for-7 with two doubles and a home run, becoming the first player in program history with six hits in a single game.

Proceed With Caution:
•   Senior Ellis Bitar is the only Ivy League catcher to have been named to the Johnny Bench Award watch list in each of the last two seasons. The award is given annually to the best catcher in Division I, and Bitar proved his wares last year by 
batting .286 and throwing out 23 prospective base-stealers against 32 stolen bases over the last two seasons. 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.

Gridiron Gang:
•   Cornell has two players on its roster who have also played for the football team in senior outfielder Kyle Gallagher and senior pitcher Austin Wahl. 
•   Gallagher became an everyday outfielder for the Big Red last season after playing five games at quarterback with the football team as a freshman. Wahl was a safety on the scout team in 2013, then walked on to the baseball team and made eight appearances in 2016. 

About Niagara:
•   The Purple Eagles are 4-10 after splitting a four-game series last weekend at Michigan State. Niagara followed up a 10-1 loss with a 3-2 win, then rebounded from a 5-1 loss with a 12-10 victory in Sunday's series finale.
•   Junior Greg Cullen is off to a blistering start with a .510 average and two of the the team's four home runs to date. Sophomore Peter Battaglia sports a .327 average.
•   Game 1 starter Zachary Kolodziejski took the loss in his last time out at Michigan State, issuing six walks in four innings. He missed most of last season due to injury.
•   Game 2 starter Cody Eckerson has a gaudy 31 strikeouts in 20.1 innings of work.

Series History vs. Niagara: 
•   The Big Red owns a dominating 19-1 advantage in an all-time series dating back to 1900, but the teams have not met since May 7, 1979.

Up Next: 
•   Cornell is scheduled to play its first mid-week game of the season, when it travels to Penn State for a game at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday against the Nittany Lions.