ITHACA, N.Y. —  The baseball team will get one last chance to tune up for Ivy League play with its first midweek game of the season, when it visits Penn State at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday.

GAME INFORMATION
Cornell at Penn State
SITE: Medlar Field — University Park, Pa.
RECORDS: Cornell 2-9, Penn State 7-11
SERIES RECORDS: Penn State leads, 35-21
VIDEO: GoPSUSports.com
AUDIO: GoPSUSports.com
STATS: GoPSUSports.com
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Probable starters
Cornell (Austin Wahl, RHP, 0-0, 11.57)   •   Penn State (Bailey Dees, RHP, 0-0, 10.80)

Cornell game notes (PDF)

Big Red Rewind:
•   Cornell's offense exploded for 27 hits in a doubleheader with Niagara on Sunday in the team's Hoy Field debut, but the Purple Eagles managed to a scratch out a split. 
•   Dale Wickham drove in five runs in the opener, and Kyle Gallagher was 4-for-4 with four RBI in a 17-5 rout. Five batters had multiple hits for the Big Red, which built an 11-0 lead after just four innings. 
•   Tim Willittes turned in second straight start of seven innings while yielding just one earned run. He induced 10 groundouts while fanning five and issuing just one walk.
•   Niagara bounced back with a three-run first inning in the night cap, though Cornell chipped away at its deficit after an RBI triple and run scored by Wickham, then a cue-shot RBI single from Gallagher to tie the game in the seventh. Niagara plated three in the eighth to pull back ahead, then got the final two outs of the game to strand the bases loaded.

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.
•   Before finally debuting at home on Sunday, the Big Red also played three games Match 17-18 at Fordham. Cornell's first victory came in the second game after a ninth-inning rally to send the game to an extra inning and the go-ahead run in the 10th.

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:
•   Though the Big Red is batting .215 for the season, it's also trending in the right direction with a .286 average over its last five games against Fordham and Niagara.
•   Senior Kyle Gallagher continues his torrid start to the season with a .385 average and .520 on base percentage, thanks to a team-high 11 walks against just nine strikeouts. 
•   The top of the order has started to heat up with senior Ryan Krainz providing 10 hits over the last five games to raise his average to .304 for the season. Senior Ellis Bitar, who typically bats one spot behind him in the order, has also raised his average to .300.
•   Senior Dale Wickham had taken over the team lead in RBI with eight after driving in six runs in Sunday's doubleheader against Niagara. In limited action last season, Wickham sported a .406 average.
•   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:
•   Though a senior, Tyler Fernandez (0-2, 9.72) is making his collegiate debut this year. He missed the last three years rehabilitating injuries. He was scheduled to start one of the games against Niagara until the series was shortened due to inclement weather.
•   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, 3.68) and Andrew Ellison (1-1, 3.68) have emerged as two of the team's top bullpen arms in the early going. Wyatt has 10 strikeouts in just 7.1 innings, and Ellison earned his victory in 3.2 innings of scoreless relief March 17 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 Penn State:
•   The Nittany Lions enter their non-league game with Binghamton on Tuesday at 7-11 after losing two of three over the weekend at Rutgers in the teams' Big Ten debut.
•   Ryan Sloniger leads the team with a .329 average and seven doubles and 19 RBI. Connor Klemann is batting .303 with four home runs, which is one more than Sloniger for the team lead. The Nittany Lions are batting .230 as a team so far.
•   Taylor Lehman, Justin Hagenman and Dante Biasi are Penn State's weekend starters, thus they are unlikely to see significant action against Cornell. Conor Larkin (0-1, 9.82) is the only other member of the team to start games so far, having done so twice. 
•   Mason Mellott (0-0, 3.52) leads the team with 10 relief appearances. He also has three saves, which is tied for the team lead with Eric Mock (0-0, 4.72). Marko Boricich (0-2, 10.80) has also made eight appearances.

Series History vs. Penn State: 
•   The Big Red is 21-35 all-time against the Nittany Lions after an 8-2 loss in a similar mid-week game in late March last season. It marked the first time the programs had met since the 2008 season.

Up Next: 
•   Cornell opens Ivy League play this weekend with a three-game series against Princeton, starting with a doubleheader at 11:30 a.m. Saturday before the finale at 1 p.m. Sunday.