| Probable Starting Pitchers |
| Day |
Cornell |
Princeton |
| Fri. 12 p.m. ET |
RHP Carson Mayfield (1-2, 9.82 ERA) |
RHP Justin Kim (1-2, 5.95 ERA) |
| Fri. 3 p.m. ET |
LHP Noah Keller (0-1, 6.48 ERA) |
RHP Sean Episcope (0-3, 11.48 ERA) |
| Sat. 1 p.m. ET |
RHP Ethan Hamill (0-1, 7.43 ERA) |
TBA |
ITHACA, N.Y. — After its scheduled home opener was postponed due to unfavorable weather forecasts, the Cornell baseball team continues its season-opening road trip this weekend at Princeton as the Big Red opens Ancient Eight play from Clarke Field.
WEEKEND REWIND
Cornell went 1-2 in its three-game series against Richmond at Pitt Field, having a 9-3 win bookended by 8-4 Richmond victories.
Senior second baseman
Matt Barnhorst hit .462 (6-of-13) with two home runs and seven RBI. Barnhorst's classmate, senior catcher
Nathan Waugh, also hit two home runs on the weekend and drove in four runs.
Carson Mayfield earned the victory for Cornell in its win last Saturday after a five-inning outing in which the sophomore right-hander allowed two runs on five hits.
WAUGH(TCHING) IT OFF THE BAT
Senior catcher
Nathan Waugh enters this weekend riding a 15-game hitting streak dating back to last season.
Waugh's 15-game hit streak is the longest active hit streak by an Ivy League player. He is only one of two Ancient Eight players to register hits in at least 10 consecutive games, joining Dartmouth's Tyler Robinson (12 games).
During Waugh's 15-game on-base streak, he has also registered at least one hit, making him the first Big Red player with a 15-game hit streak since former outfielder Brian Billigen had a 16-game hit streak during the 2012 campaign. Billigen accomplished his feat from March 4-27, where he slashed .470/.527/.758 with five doubles, a triple, four home runs, and 16 RBI.
Should Waugh surpass Billigen, he would have the longest hit streak by a Big Red player since Marshall Yanzick compiled a 19-game hit streak spanning the 2011 and 2012 campaigns.
LOOKING TO EXTEND THEIR STREAKS
Waugh (15 games), junior outfielder
Jakobi Davis (14 games), and sophomore outfielder
Caden Wildman (11 games) all enter this weekend riding double-digit on-base streaks — the streaks for Waugh and Davis both date back to last season.
Davis is slashing .265/.357/.367, dating back to April 28, 2023, while Wildman's is .293/.396/.415.
WHEN IT RUNS, IT POURS
Cornell has shown a knack for scoring runs in bundles this season, as 40 of its 53 runs have come in multi-run innings (75.4 percent of its run production).
Of the Big Red's 220 runs scored since the beginning of last season, 169 have come in innings that have featured at least two runs crossing home plate (74.6 percent of run production).
Since the beginning of the 2022 season, Cornell has had at least one multi-run inning in 63 of its 82 games (76.8 percent). At one point, Cornell scored at least two runs in 18 consecutive games from April 24, 2022 (final eight games of season) to March 18, 2023 (first 10 games of season).
Cornell has had 12 multi-run innings through its first three weekends of play, highlighted by a season-high six-run inning in the opening game of the Big Red's doubleheader against Georgetown at Capital One Park in Tysons, Va., on March 10.
IVY LEAGUE PRESEASON POLL
The Ivy League preseason poll was announced on Feb. 19, with Penn pitted as the unanimous favorite following a vote of 16 panelists.
Columbia was picked second, finishing as the only other program to reach the century mark in points (101). Harvard (97 points) and Princeton (87 points) were the other anticipated programs to round out this year's four-team Ivy League Tournament field.
Yale was slotted to finish fifth behind its 66 points, while Cornell (37 points) and Brown (35 points) were separated by two points for sixth and seventh places. Dartmouth rounded out the eight-team league with 25 points.
WALK THIS WAY
Junior infielder
Max Jensen enters this weekend with a 0.43 strikeout-to-walk ratio, which is second behind Brown's Mark Henshon (0.40 — two walks to five strikeouts) among Ivy League hitters, according to data compiled by D1Baseball.com. Along with Henshon and Jensen, Harvard's Ben Rounds (0.55), Dartmouth's Elliot Krewson (0.71), Brown's Reece Rappoli (0.80), and Columbia's Hunter Snyder (0.91) have sub-1.00 strikeout-to-walk ratios.
Jensen's 16.3 percent walk rate (seven walks in 43 plate appearances) is the third-best average by an Ivy League batter. Columbia's Hunter Snyder (26.2 percent — 11 walks in 42 PAs) and Princeton's Jake Bold (23.0 percent — 17 walks in 74 PAs) have higher clips.
NOTHING EXTRA, PLEASE
Cornell has not played an extra-inning contest in any of its last 56 games, dating back to a 10-9 walk-off victory against Central New York rival Binghamton on April 20, 2022, at Hoy Field.
Saint Peter's is the only Division I program with its last extra-inning contest later than the Big Red. The Peacocks last played extra innings on May 8, 2021, when they played a pair of eight-inning contests against Monmouth on both ends of a scheduled seven-inning doubleheader.
Last season, Cornell was one of seven NCAA Division I programs not to play an extra-inning game, joined by Alabama A&M, East Tennessee State, Georgia Southern, Kansas State, Princeton, and Saint Peter's.
Cornell's lone contest last year that did not end in nine innings was the nightcap of an April 22 doubleheader against Princeton, 11-0, which was halted after seven innings due to rain.
Excluding the COVID-shortened 2020 season, last year's campaign was Cornell's first without any contests going to extra innings since 1997.
FAMILY MATTERS
Freshman infielder
Kevin Hager and freshman right-handed pitcher
Graham Biben are the younger brothers of former Cornell baseball alums.
Hager's older brother, Frank, was a member of the Cornell baseball team from 2009-12 before returning to his alma mater in 2016, where he served as a volunteer assistant coach for
Dan Pepicelli in his first year at the helm of the Cornell baseball program. Frank was elevated to assistant coach and recruiting coordinator the following year, aiding the program to a 21-17 record, and remained with the Big Red program until the conclusion of the 2022 campaign. While on staff, Frank also earned his master of professional studies from the Johnson Graduate School of Management in 2020.
Biben's older brother, August, graduated from Cornell last spring and was a member of the Big Red program from 2019-23. Along with his brother, Graham's older sister, Dylan, is also enrolled at Cornell, where his father, Matthew, and his grandfather also attended.
SCOUTING PRINCETON
Princeton enters this weekend's series with a 4-12 overall record after going 3-7 during its gauntlet of a stretch that featured 10 games played in a seven-day stretch.
The Tigers dropped two of its three games two weekends ago to Navy in Annapolis, Md., before falling to Richmond, 24-8, in a Monday matinee with Richmond. Princeton split a brief two-game series with Old Dominion on March 12 and 13, claiming the opening game, 10-8, before suffering a 12-1 setback the following day. Last weekend, Princeton was swept in a three-game series with VCU at The Diamond in Richmond, falling by scores of 11-7, 7-1, and 6-3.
This weekend will be the first trio of home games for the Tigers at Clarke Field, where it posted a 7-4 ledger last season.
Jake Kernodle paces the Tigers offense with his .348 batting average, while Jake Koonin (.322), Jake Bold (.321), and Caden Shapiro (.314) all enter the weekend slate posting batting averages north of .300. Nick DiPietrantonio has hit a Princeton-leading three home runs, while Kernodle, Koonin, Bold, Shapiro, and Kyle Vinci all have two round-trippers apiece.
Jacob Faulkner has been Princeton's go-to reliever, appearing in seven contests out of the bullpen and logging a team-best 3.66 ERA over 19.2 innings of work. Justin Kim, who is slated to start the first game of Friday's twin bill, has a 5.95 ERA over his four starts, marking the top figure by a Tigers starting pitcher.
