ITHACA, N.Y. — The Cornell baseball team will make the short trip to Vestal to take on Binghamton in non-league action at Bearcats Baseball Complex for its first night game in more than two months.
 

GAME INFORMATION

Cornell at Binghamton
6:30 p.m. Wednesday, May 1
SITE: Baseball Complex — Vestal, N.Y.
RECORDS: Cornell 11-22, 6-12 Ivy League;
                    Binghamton 18-17; 8-6 America East (not including Tuesday's game vs. St. Bonaventure)
SERIES RECORD: Cornell leads, 23-17-1
VIDEO: AmericaEast.tv
STATS: BUbearcats.com
PROBABLE STARTERS: Cornell (Ellison, RHP, 0-0, 2.35)
                                         Binghamton (To Be Determined)
Cornell game notes (PDF)
 

Penn Series Redux:

•   Cornell had an entertaining weekend, recording consecutive walk-off victories against Penn on Saturday and Sunday at Hoy Field to win its first Ivy League series of the season while also playing spoiler and dampening the Quakers' postseason hopes.
•   Senior Will Simoneit played the hero on Senior Day, hitting a three-run home run in the bottom of the ninth inning to cap an 8-7 win in Sunday's series rubber game. It came on the heels of his two-run homer in the seventh inning, giving him the team's first five-RBI performance of the season.
•   A different senior delivered the big blow the day prior, with Adam Saks plating two runs with his first collegiate triple to end a 4-3 victory for Cornell. The deep drive into the gap in left-center came with two outs in the ninth. Freshman Austin Flematti hit his first collegiate home run in the second inning of the doubleheader's night cap.
•   Penn won the series opener, 6-2, thanks to six unanswered runs. Simoneit homered in that game, too, finishing the series 5-for-13 with a double, three home runs, six RBIs and a stolen base. 
•   John Natoli was on the long side of both Cornell victories, giving the reliever a team-high five victories on the season.
 

The Big Red, In Brief:

•   Dan Pepicelli is in his fourth season as the Ted Thoren Head Coach of Baseball. He has a 60-85-1 record at the helm.
•   Pitching continues to be the Big Red's strength this season. Cornell ranks second in the Ivy League with a 4.60 earned run average, and it leads the league in team shutouts (three), strikeout-to-walk ratio (2.05), WHIP (1.42) and walks allowed per nine innings (3.32).
 

150 Years of Cornell Baseball:

•   This season marks the 150th year of baseball at Cornell, as it continues to be the oldest varsity sport at the university. A celebration commemorating the program's sesquicentennial was held last Saturday at Hoy Field.
 

On Offense:

•   Cornell's bats are continuing their upward trend, having now averaged 8.5 hits per game over the last 20 contests after averaging just 4.85 over its first 13 games. Over those last 20 games, the team is batting .257 with 36 doubles, and it has four players batting .270 or better.
•   Senior Adam Saks leads the team with a .321 average, having taken over the everyday role in center field while primarily batting leadoff. He's also drawn 11 walks against just 11 strikeouts. After spending his first three years on East Hill exclusively deployed as a pitcher, Saks has reached base safely in all 21 of his starts.
•   Senior Will Simoneit is the Big Red's hot hand, now batting .295 for the season with a team-high five home run. He finished the month of April with a .375 average, four homers, 11 RBI, a .625 slugging percentage and just three strikeouts across 64 at-bats. He also enters Wednesday's game on a six-game hitting streak.
•   Junior Alex Carnegie leads the team with 15 RBI, followed by 14 from Simoneit and freshman Austin Flematti.
•   Sophomore Ramon Garza (.240) is tied with Simoneit for the team lead with eight doubles, and he's 7-for-8 on stolen-base attempts. That ranks second on the team behind just junior Matt Collins (10-for-11).
 

On The Mound:

•   Junior Andrew Ellison (0-0, 2.35, SV) is scheduled to make just his second collegiate start, having made 24 of his first 25 appearances out of the bullpen. That includes 3.2 scoreless innings of work in a piggyback of Jonathan Zacharias in last Saturday's second game vs. Penn, which helped set the stage for Cornell's come-from-behind win.
•   In relief, junior John Natoli (5-1, 1.78, 4 SV) has been a force with 35 strikeouts in 30.1 innings. He leads the team with 15 appearances, including two against Penn last weekend that both ended with Natoli recording the victories.
•   Beyond Natoli, sophomore Trevor Daniel Davis (0-0, 3.95) has the next-most relief appearances with 11. Freshman Luke Yacinich (2-4, 7.98) has made four starts among his 10 appearances, and freshman Niko Lillios (0-0, 3.27) has pitched in nine games.
•   Cornell's weekend rotation — Colby Wyatt (2-6, 3.72), Jonathan Zacharias (0-3, 3.38) and Jeb Bemiss (2-2, 5.31) — is unlikely to pitch in earnest against the Bearcats.
 

Honor Roll:

•   Cornell placed five on the All-Ivy League teams last season, but just senior Will Simoneit returns from that group. Simoneit was placed on the All-Ivy Second Team for a second straight year, with the unique distinction of garnering those honors from different positions — catcher in 2017; third base in 2018.
 

About Binghamton:

•   The Bearcats enter Tuesday's game against St. Bonaventure 18-17 overall and 8-6 in America East after a three-game sweep of visiting Hartford over the weekend. Binghamton pitchers yielded just three runs in the set despite walking 14 batters.
•   As a team, Binghamton is batting .269, has a 4.53 earned run average and .975 fielding percentage. Tim Sinicki is in his 27th season as the head coach.
•   Alex Baratta leads the team with 27 RBIs and a .385 average, followed by Daniel Franchi's .353 mark. Franchi is also tied for team lead with Sean Trenholm (.314) with three homes runs, and leads the team with six stolen bases and nine doubles.
•   Since Binghamton is playing Tuesday, it has not yet announced a starter for the game against the Big Red.
•   Robert Brown (3-0, 4.88, 2 SV) and Jack Collins (1-2, 4.35, 2 SV) are tied for the team lead with 12 relief appearances. The former earned a save in Saturday's first game, while the latter earned a victory on Sunday in three innings of work. 
•   Ryan Bryggman (1-3, 9.22, 2 SV) is tied for the team lead in saves with 11 appearances, and Josh Kopcza (0-0, 5.79) has 10.
•   Binghamton's weekend rotation — Nick Gallagher (2-4, 4.67), Ben Anderson (7-2, 2.29) and Thomas Babalis (3-1, 3.41) — is unlikely to pitch in earnest against the Big Red.
 

Series History vs. Binghamton:

•   Cornell holds a 23-17-1 lead in the all-time series. The Big Red is 4-2-1 in its last seven against the Bearcats, though BU earned a 8-4 victory on April 9 in this season's first meeting at Hoy Field. Ramon Garza was 2-for-4 with a pair of stolen bases and an RBI, but the Big Red couldn't fight back after conceding three runs in the first.
•   The teams had a rare split of three games last year. The Cornell victory came on April 24 at the Bearcats' Baseball Complex, with Will Simoneit going 3-for-4 with a home run and four RBI. Binghamton won the final game between the programs last season, 11-1, on May 2. A bizarre 5-5 tie on April 10 was the first meeting of 2018, when the game was called after 9½ innings due to darkness.
•   The teams were originally scheduled to play last Tuesday in Vestal, but the game was contest was canceled due to rain and thunderstorms in the area.
 

Up Next:

•   Cornell concludes its Ivy League on the road with a three-game series at Dartmouth. The teams are scheduled for a doubleheader on Saturday before a single-game finale on Sunday.