ITHACA, N.Y. – Sophomore Matt Barnhorst and freshman Ryan Porter each had three-hit games, but Harvard used strong late-inning relief pitching to lock down a doubleheader sweep on Friday at Hoy Field in the teams' first Ivy League games of the season. The Crimson won the opener, 7-5, then pulled away for an 11-5 victory in the second game.
 
The teams traded body blows over the first half of the series opener before engaging in a rare pitching duel between long relievers. Senior Kevin Cushing was stellar out of the bullpen for Cornell (3-10, 0-2 Ivy League), conceding just one walk and one single over a career-high 4 1/3 innings.
 
But Harvard (10-7, 2-0) got a similar effort from Chris Clark, who fanned seven in 4 2/3 innings of work to earn the victory. The only base-runner he allowed was Barnhorst's single in the ninth to bring the tying run to the plate, but Clark endured a pair of swinging strikeouts to close out the game.
 
That base hit followed a pair of doubles earlier in the game for Barnhorst, who also scored a pair of runs. Harvard plated the game's first four runs before Barnhorst led off the bottom of the third with his first double.
 
That was followed by a single up the middle from freshman Jakobi Davis, then junior Wils Guy drove in Barnhorst with a hustle double to the right of center field. Senior Austin Flematti later earned an RBI walk, and freshman Max Jensen's sacrifice fly cut the hosts' deficit to 4-3.
 
With the Big Red batting around in the frame, Barnhorst led off the fourth in identical fashion with a two-bagger to right. After stealing third with one out, he scored on a wild pitch.
 
Still, Cornell was never able to pull ahead – until Guy led off the bottom of the first in the night cap by driving the second pitch from Harvard starter Sean Matson over the wall in left field for his first collegiate home run.
 
Matson settled in while the Crimson built a 3-1 lead through five innings against a scrappy start from Cornell freshman Von Baker. But an error by Harvard's left fielder on pop-up down the line helped keep Cornell's sixth inning alive, leading to back-to-back homers by Porter and Barnhorst to give the Big Red a 4-3 lead.
 
Baker departed on the long side with one out in the seventh, but Harvard came right back with three runs of its own on three walks and three wild pitches.
 
Freshman Max Jensen's triple to the alley in left-center with one out in the eighth was followed by Porter's RBI double to right, allowing the Big Red to send the go-ahead runto the plate. But Porter was thrown out attempting to steal third, and a strikeout ended the threat. Harvard then scored five times in the ninth to pull away.
 
The teams are scheduled to close out the three-game series at 1 p.m. on Saturday.