ITHACA, N.Y. — The baseball team hits the halfway point of its Ivy League season this weekend, when it travels to Philadelphia for a three-game series against Penn.

SERIES INFORMATION
Cornell at Penn
SITE: Meiklejohn Stadium — Philadelphia, Pa.
RECORDS: Cornell 6-16-1, 2-7 Ivy League;
                    Penn 11-19-1, 5-6-1 Ivy League
SERIES RECORDS: Penn leads, 157-121-2
VIDEO: IvyLeagueNetwork.com
STATS: www.PennAthletics.com
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Probable starters
Game 1 • 11:30 a.m. Saturday, April 21
   Cornell (Willittes, RHP, 2-4, 4.98)   •   Penn (Kleiman, LHP, 1-5, 3.88)
Game 2 • ~2:30 p.m. Saturday, April 21
   Cornell (Urbon, RHP, 1-2, 5.53)   •   Penn (Scafidi, RHP, 2-3, 4.56)
Game 3 • 1 p.m. Sunday, April 22
   Cornell (Morris, RHP, 0-1, 5.14)   •   Penn (To be announced)

Cornell game notes (PDF)
Penn game notes (PDF)

The Big Red, In Brief:
•   In its third season under the guidance of Dan Pepicelli, the Ted Thoren Head Coach of Baseball, Cornell is 6-16-1 overall and 2-7 in Ivy League play. The Big Red is coming off an eight-game home stand in which it posted a 2-5-1 record, most recently winning the middle game of a three-game set against Dartmouth last weekend.
•   Entering Wednesday's games around the country, Cornell was tabbed 246th in the Ratings Percentage Index — which is fourth-highest among the eight teams in the Ivy League. The three league teams the Big Red has played so far this season are all in the top half of the Ancient Eight standings entering the weekend.

Hit Rewind:
•   Cornell has caught its breath after playing eight home games on seven dates over a 12-day span through challenging weather conditions. 
•   Seth Urbon turned in a gem for his first collegiate victory in last Saturday's 8-3 win over Dartmouth. He yielded no runs and just one hit through seven innings before tiring late and ultimately coming up one out shy of the team's first complete game of the season.
•   Cornell dropped a pair of two-run games to bookend the Dartmouth series, with Tim Willittes tossing his fourth quality start in his last five outings in the opener – a 4-2 win for the Big Green. Ryan Krainz drove in both Big Red runs with a seventh-inning single.
•   Four errors led to three unearned Dartmouth runs in the series finale, and the visitors held on for a 5-3 victory on Sunday. Tommy Morris was stellar in long relief, yielding just one hit across four scoreless innings. Dale Wickham hit a home run to lead off the eighth to cap his 6-for-13 (.462) week. He has two of the team's six home runs.
•   Cornell recorded its first tie in eight years on April 17, when a game against Binghamton was halted due to darkness with the teams tied, 5-5, in the middle of the 10th inning. Josh Arndt smashed a two-home run to right field in the second inning to extend his hit streak at the time to 11 games, the team's longest of the season.

On Offense:
•   Cornell has scored 85 runs in its last 14 (6.07 per game) after plating just 21 runs in its first nine (2.33 per game).
•   Senior Kyle Gallagher continues to pace the offense with a .301 average and an on base percentage of .463, which ranks second in the Ivy League. He's drawn 25 walks in just 23 games, which gives him the third-highest walks per game rate nationally (1.09). 
•   Junior Will Simoneit is batting a team-leading .359 over the last 10 games. He's also tied with sophomore Kaleb Lepper for the most stolen bases on the team with four. Simoneit and senior Ellis Bitar, the team's two catchers, have seven of the team's 27 stolen bases between them.
•   Senior Dale Wickham and Simoneit are tied for the team lead with 17 RBI. Wickham's .406 on base percentage ranks second on the team, aided by being hit with eight pitches. That's an average of 0.36 hit-by-pitches per game, 35th-highest in the country.
•   Senior Ellis Bitar enters the weekend on a streak of reaching base in 19 consecutive games, the team's longest such stretch since Ryan Krainz reached in 23 straight to close out the 2017 season.

On The Mound:
•   Fifth-year senior Tim Willittes (2-4, 4.98) has rebounded from a tough start to the year, posting a 2-2 record, 3.27 ERA and 26 strikeouts over his last five starts. He returns to the rotation after being granted a medical redshirt by the Ivy League for missing the 2015 season.
•   Sophomore Seth Urbon (1-2, 5.53) was stellar in his last outing against Dartmouth, coming up one out shy of a complete game. He has entered the rotation in his first year with the Big Red after transferring from Georgia Tech. He is the younger brother of former Cornell standout Kellon Urbon '15. 
•   Senior Tommy Morris (0-1, 5.14) is slated to re-enter the rotation for the first time since he started Opening Day for the Big Red at Texas A&M. After suffering an injury, he has made four relief appearances during the team's recent home stand.
•   Sophomore Andrew Ellison (1-3, 2.08) has yielded just two extra-base hits in 17.1 innings over nine appearances. He has stranded all nine runners he's inherited.
•   Sophomore Colby Wyatt (0-1, 3.38, 2 SV) leads the team with 13 relief appearances. He ranks third on the team with 23 strikeouts despite working just 18.2 innings.

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.

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:
•   The Quakers are 11-19-1 after a 17-7 thrashing of La Salle on Tuesday. In Penn's last Ivy League series, it took two of three over the weekend at Princeton.
•   Penn is batting .264 for the season, which is just four percentage points behind Dartmouth for the Ivy League lead.  The team's ERA of 4.67 and WHIP of 1.47 also rank second on the circuit, trailing just Yale (4.47, 1.43).
•   Sean Phelan leads the team with a .319 average and is tied for second with four home runs. Chris Adams bats .312 with a team-high seven stolen bases and 10 doubles. Matt McGeagh leads the team with five HRs and the Ivy League with 30 RBI.
•   Gabe Kleiman (1-5, 3.88) heads the rotation on the heels of his first victory. He leads the team with 48 strikeouts across 51 innings, and Christian Scafidi (2-3, 4.56) has fanned 39 across 47.1 innings in seven starts.
•   Dylan Mulvihill (2-0, 1.69) leads the team with 14 relief appearances.

Series History vs. Penn:
•   Penn is the most common opponent to the Big Red in program history, with this weekend's three games running the series tally to 283 games. The Quakers have won three of the four games in each of the last four seasons.
•   While Penn has the series advantage, 154-120-2, Cornell has enjoyed success in the most recent meetings between the squads. In the last 58 meetings, the Big Red is 34-24 against the Quakers with just five series losses in the last 15 years.

Up Next:
•   Cornell returns to New York for a non-league game at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday at Binghamton.