UPDATE - Saturday's doubleheader has been canceled due to inclement weather and moved to Sunday at 12:30 p.m. The Big Red and the Bears will play a single game on Monday at a time to be announced.
ITHACA, N.Y. -- The Cornell softball team will kick off Ivy League season when it welcomes Brown to Niemand-Robison Softball Field for a three-game set beginning with a doubleheader on Saturday, March 23 at 12:30 p.m. The two teams will be back at it for a single game on Sunday, March 24 at 12:30 p.m. All three games will be available on ESPN+.
This is the second year of a three-game conference series format with the other league schools, and Brown visits Ithaca in 2019 after its series, slated to be played on East Hill, was moved to Providence because of inclement weather. Because of that, the Big Red will play host to five of the next six weekends beginning with its matchup with the Bears after playing just two a year ago in Ithaca.
The Big Red swept all three games from Brown in 2018, earning 8-4, 11-3 and 1-0 victories. The sweep left Cornell at 6-3 in league play en route to a 10-11 finish, a four-game improvement from the previous season.
Four of the top five hitters this season are freshmen, and 85 of the 126 starts this year have been made by first years (67 percent).
Allison Kerce paces the team in batting at .333 and has added a pair of doubles, a home run and five RBI. Junior
Bridgette Rooney is hitting .282 with three doubles and a team-best six RBI, while
Miranda Lawson is batting .276 with six runs scored and a .462 on-base percentage. As a team, the Big Red is hitting .220.
Freshman
Ashley Delany leads the team with a 1-1 record and a 6.41 ERA in the circle, as all three regular pitchers have hurled at least 25 innings.
Lisa Nelson and
Katie Lew, last season's starters, have combined for three complete games and are looking to get on track with the start of Ivy season at hand. As a team, Cornell is fielding at a .948 clip behind them.
Brown entered a Wednesday contest at Rhode Island with a 5-7 record and having lost four of its last five contests under first year head coach Kate Refsnyder. Refsnyder, who served as an assistant coach for the Bears from 2014-17 before spending last season at the head of nearby Hamilton College, has relied on the big bats of Madi Cranford (.514) and Ashli Lotz (.459) for a Brown team hitting .283 as a group. Three different players have hurled more than 20 innings, with Lauren Innerst (2-1, 2.21 ERA) pacing the team in six appearances (two starts). Emily Waters has also been the pitcher of record for two victories, while Grace Ladd has one in a team-best five starts.
This is the first of three consecutive home weekends for the Big Red, with Yale (March 30-31) and Penn (April 6-7) to follow.
