ITHACA, N.Y. – Junior Josh Arndt blasted his first home run of the season and sophomore reliever Andrew Ellison escape some incredible jams in the late innings, helping the baseball team ended a three-game losing streak in unusual fashion on Tuesday evening against Binghamton – a 5-5 tie after 9½ innings at Hoy Field.
 
Ellison worked the final 2.1 innings for Cornell (5-14-1), stranding a whopping eight runners without yielding a single run. Senior catcher Ellis Bitar deftly defended a little nubber in front of home plate to strand the bases loaded in the ninth, then Ellison induced an infield pop-up to leave them loaded again in the top of the 10th.
 
Much to seemingly everyone's surprise, that's how the game would end without Cornell getting a chance to bat in the home half of the 10th. The umpires ruled that it was too dark to continue play, leaving the Big Red with its first tie since 2012 and just the 35th in a program history that dates all the way back to 1869.
 
Cornell got off to a strong start by scoring the game's first four runs. Arndt's two-run blast over the wall in right field in the second inning extended his hitting streak to 11 games, the team's longest of the season. Sophomore Kaleb Lepper then singled, stole a base, advanced to third on a wild pitch and scored on freshman Ramon Garza's flare over third base to cap the three-run frame. Senior Kyle Gallagher then scored the fourth run an inning later after Binghamton (9-15-1) recorded just single outs on tailor-made double-play balls.
 
Sophomore starter Jeb Bemiss – who entered the game leading the team in innings pitched out of the bullpen – was terrific for the Big Red, yielding no hits and just one walk until there was one out in the fourth. The Bearcats swatted four singles in the inning to push across two runs, then the threat ended when Lepper gunned down a runner trying to score on a base hit to center field.
 
The Bearcats then pulled ahead, 5-4, after a two-run homer by Paul Rufo in the sixth and a solo shot from Alex Baratta in the seventh. But the Big Red equalized in the bottom of the stanza with senior Ryan Krainz lacing a two-out single up the middle and scoring on a perfectly executed hit-and-run double to left by Gallagher.
 
Cornell returns to Ivy League play this weekend with a three-game series against Dartmouth, scheduled to being with an 11:30 a.m. doubleheader on Saturday at Hoy Field.