ITHACA, N.Y. – The Cornell baseball team is scheduled for a three-game series this weekend at Richmond for its final preparation before the start of Ivy League play. The teams open with 1 p.m. starts on Friday and Saturday before a first pitch at noon in the finale on Sunday.
 
Cornell (2-6) is coming off a pair of losses in its last game action, which came in the form of two Sunday contests at Maryland's Bob "Turtle" Smith Stadium. The Big Red used a five-run ninth to force an extra frame against Georgetown in the opener before falling, 9-8, in 10 innings. Cornell then fell to 24th-ranked Maryland in the day's second game, 12-5.
 
The first three weeks of the Big Red's season paints the picture of a team with a potent offense and a pitching staff in progress. The Big Red leads Ivy League programs in team scoring (6.5 runs per game), on base percentage (.344), walks (43) and stolen bases per game (2.00), while the team's pitchers are continuing to largely get acclimated to the collegiate level after the bulk of the 2020 season and the entirety of the 2021 campaign were wiped out by the COVID-19 pandemic.
 
Junior Joe Hollerbach continues to headline the attack with 15 hits over an active six-game hitting streak, helping him rank second nationally entering Wednesday's game in batting average (.531) and slugging percentage (1.031), and sixth in OBP (.595).
 
Junior Ryan Ross also tied a program single-game record with two triples in one of the team's wins at Coppin State, then he clubbed Cornell's first grand slam since 2018 in last Sunday's game at Maryland. Sophomore Nathan Waugh is batting .375 with two homers in his first collegiate season, and freshman Max Jensen (.348) was named the Ivy League Rookie of the Week after a 6-for-8 performance in three games against a formidable foe in Virginia, which is currently 15-1 on the year.
 
On the mound, sophomore Von Baker is slated to make his first collegiate start in Friday's opener after tossing 2.2 innings of scoreless relief against the Terrapins on Sunday. Junior southpaw Spencer Edwards is scheduled to make his third start of the year on Saturday, then senior Luke Yacinich is probable to start Sunday. Yacinich has yielded a total of two runs in the first six innings of his last two starts before running into trouble in the seventh inning both times.
 
Richmond (10-4) has played 11 straight at home entering the weekend after Wednesday's originally-scheduled game at North Carolina was rained out. The Spiders took two of three against Holy Cross in its previous action, and it defeated Princeton, 9-8, on March 7 in its only other game against Ivy League competition.
 
Similar to Cornell, Richmond's offense has been its strength in the early going with a team batting average of .298. Senior Dom Toso leads with a. 471 average and 22 RBI in just 14 games, while junior Will Gersky has a team-high four home runs. The starting rotation has paced the pitching staff, with the Spiders scheduled to roll out the order of sophomore Jeremy Neff (LHP, 0-2, 3.57) graduate student Brock Weirather (RHP, 2-0, 1.52) and sophomore Alden Mathes (LHP, 2-0, 1.27) against the Big Red.