| Probable Starting Pitchers |
| Day |
Cornell |
Dartmouth |
| Sat. 11:30 a.m. ET |
RHP Carson Mayfield (1-2, 8.02 ERA) |
RHP Marco Dumsky (1-1, 5.52 ERA) |
| Sat. 2:30 p.m. ET |
LHP Noah Keller (0-1, 4.40 ERA) |
LHP Devin Milberg (0-1, 7.63 ERA) |
| Sun. 12 p.m. ET |
RHP Ethan Hamill (1-1, 5.85 ERA) |
RHP Eddie Albert (1-0, 0.60 ERA) |
ITHACA, N.Y. — The Cornell baseball team returns to Booth Field for the first time in the 2024 campaign as it opens a six-game homestand this weekend with a three-game series against Ivy League rival Dartmouth.
WEEKEND REWIND
Cornell was swept in a Friday doubleheader against Princeton at Clarke Field last weekend, dropping a pair of 4-3 contests, including the first one that came in 10 innings. The extra-inning contest was the Big Red's first since the 2022 season.
The Big Red avoided being swept in its series with the Tigers behind a 15-run, 15-hit day in a 15-2 victory last Sunday.
Junior infielder Max Jensen went 7-for-12 at the plate with a double, home run, and three RBI. He also drew four walks and did not strike out once in his 16 plate appearances. On the weekend, Jensen posted a 1.605 OPS, slashing .583/.688/.917.
Cornell's sophomore starting pitching trio of Carson Mayfield, Noah Keller, and Ethan Hamill recorded the first three quality starts of the season for the Big Red, as all hurlers registered at least six innings of work and yielded three or fewer earned runs.
WAUGH[TCHING] IT OFF THE BAT
Senior catcher Nathan Waugh enters this weekend riding an 18-game hitting streak dating back to last season.
No Cornell player has had an 18-game hit streak since infielder Marshall Yanzick compiled a 19-game hit streak spanning 2011 (last five games) and 2012 (first 14 games).
Entering this weekend, Waugh is hitting .310 with one double, three home runs and a team-leading 13 RBI. His three home runs tie him with senior first baseman Matt Barnhorst for the team lead.
Waugh's 18-game hit streak is the longest active hit streak by an Ivy League player. He is only one of four Ancient Eight players to register hits in at least 10 consecutive games, joining Brown's DJ Dillehay (12 games), Dartmouth's Tyler Robinson (11 games), and Yale's Alec Atkinson (11 games).
LOOKING TO EXTEND THEIR STREAKS
Waugh (18 games), junior outfielder Jakobi Davis (17 games), and junior infielder Max Jensen (10 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 .267/.362/.417, dating back to the second game of an April 28, 2023 doubleheader against Penn. Jensen's clip over his last 10 games stands at .389/.500/.694 and is slashing .556/.652/.833 during his active five-game hit streak.
WHEN IT RUNS, IT POURS
Cornell has shown a knack for scoring runs in bundles this season, as 57 of its 74 runs have come in multi-run innings (77.0 percent of its run production).
Of the Big Red's 241 runs scored since the beginning of last season, 186 have come in innings that have featured at least two runs crossing home plate (77.2 percent of run production).
Since the beginning of the 2022 season, Cornell has had at least one multi-run inning in 66 of its 85 games (77.6 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 17 multi-run innings through its first five weekends of play, highlighted by a season-high seven-run first inning in last Sunday's contest against Princeton at Clarke Field. In the seven-run frame, junior center fielder Jakobi Davis capped the frame with a two-out grand slam, marking the Big Red's first round-tripper with the bases loaded since Matt Barnhorst, exactly one year to the date, on March 23, 2023, at Yale.
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 0.27 strikeout-to-walk ratio that leads all Ivy League hitters and ranks sixth nationally, according to data compiled by D1Baseball.com. Only East Tennessee State's Cameron Sisneros (0.16), Texas State's Ryne Farber (0.21), Cal St. Northridge's Kamau Neighbors (0.21), and Louisiana Tech's Dalton Davis (0.25) and Ethan Bates (0.26) have better averages.
Jensen's 18.6 percent walk rate (11 walks in 59 plate appearances) is the third-best average by an Ivy League batter. Princeton's Jake Bold (23.3 percent — 20 walks in 86 PAs) and Columbia's Hunter Snyder (23.2 percent — 13 walks in 56 PAs) have higher clips.
SMOOTH IN THE FIELD
Cornell enters this weekend with an Ivy League-leading .973 fielding percentage, eight points better than second-place Penn (.965).
The Big Red has not committed an error in any of its last three games and over its last 34.2 innings of play. Cornell's previous error occurred against the opening batter against Richmond on March 17.
It is the first time Cornell has gone three consecutive games without recording an error since going four straight games without a miscue since May 3-8, 2022.
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 DARTMOUTH
Dartmouth, which finished with just three wins last season, has already doubled it win total in 2024, entering this weekend's series with a 6-9 overall record and a 2-1 mark in Ancient Eight play. The Big Green's two Ivy League wins already matches last year's total in its 21 conference games played in 2023.
Last weekend, Dartmouth opened Ivy League play with a 6-2 setback to Yale at George H.W. Bush '48 Field in West Haven, Conn., before holding Yale to a combined two runs in the latter two contests, posting 2-1 and 3-1 victories.
The Big Green are currently in the midst of a 19-game road trip to open the season as Dartmouth's home opener is scheduled for next weekend, when it hosts Columbia in a three-game series, beginning on Saturday, April 6.
Nathan Cmeyla leads the Big Green in batting average (.361), but it is Kolton Freeman who has been Dartmouth's most productive hitter, logging a .340/.453/.566 slash line, posting a team-best 1.019 OPS. Elliot Krewson (.339) also joins Cmeyla and Freeman in logging a batting average north of .330.
Eddie Albert, who is slated to be Dartmouth's starting pitcher on Sunday, has a team-leading 0.60 ERA, which ranks second nationally among pitchers with at least one inning pitcher per team game played. He has allowed three runs (one earned) over his 15 innings of work across three outings (two starts). He has walked seven batters and struck out 11. Drew Koenen (1-1, 1.29 ERA) and Danny Will (1-0, 2.16 ERA) have been go-to relievers out of the bullpen for the Big Green this season.
