ITHACA, N.Y. — Freshman left-handed pitcher
Huxley Holcombe allowed just one hit over five shutout innings of relief to log his first collegiate victory and guide the Cornell baseball team to its fifth straight win as the Big Red defeated Harvard, 5-4, at a blustery Booth Field on Saturday afternoon.
The Big Red's five-game win streak is its longest since stringing five wins together during the 2019 season. Paired with the win streak, Cornell is now 4-0 at Booth Field in 2024, marking the first time the Big Red has won its first four home games since 2016.
Offensively for Cornell, junior left fielder
John Quinlan and senior first baseman
Braden Mack each drove in a pair of runs in the victory for the Big Red (7-11, 5-2 Ivy League). Quinlan and junior infielder
Max Jensen both hit home runs, extending Cornell's streak of games with a home run to 10.
Sophomore right-handed pitcher
Carson Mayfield earned the starting nod on the mound for the Big Red, allowing four runs on four hits over four-plus innings of work before leaving the game with an athletic trainer in the fifth inning.
George Cooper drove in a pair of runs in the setback for the Crimson (4-18, 2-5 Ivy League). Will Burns made his first collegiate start for Harvard, allowing five runs on six hits over five-inning outing.
Cornell opened the contest with four unanswered runs over the first two frames, kick-started by a two-run first inning courtesy of a one-out solo home run by Jensen to dead-center field and a two-out RBI single by Mack.
With two outs in the second, Quinlan doubled the Big Red's lead with a wind-aided two-run home run to left field that gave Cornell an early 4-0 advantage.
Harvard chipped away at Cornell's lead as Cooper doubled home Matt Giberti in the fourth to make it a 4-1 contest. A pinch-hit RBI double by Sawyer Feller cut the Big Red lead to 4-2 before an RBI groundout by Jordan Kang and a two-out RBI single by Cooper leveled the game at 4-all.
Mack drove in the eventual game-winning run on a fifth-inning sacrifice fly that scored senior catcher
Nathan Waugh, who led the inning off with a double to left field.
After allowing a two-out single in the fifth, Holcombe retired 13 of the next 14 Crimson batters as the lone Harvard batter to reach base came on a leadoff walk in the seventh. Following the free pass, Holcombe retired the last nine batters to solidify the victory.
Harvard appeared to have tied the game in the ninth as a fly ball to left field looked like it would easily clear the fence, but a northwesterly wind cut the ball out of the air, allowing Quinlan to make a catch on the warning track.
GAME NOTES
• Saturday was the 171st meeting between Cornell and Harvard on the baseball diamond. The Big Red now has a 59-112 mark against the Crimson and has won each of the last three games against its Ivy League rival, the program's first three-game win streak over Harvard since the 2016 and 2017 seasons.
• The Big Red's 5-2 Ivy League record is the program's best seven-game start to Ancient Eight play since 2012 when Cornell was 6-1 after seven conference games.
• Cornell's two home runs increased its season total to 24, matching the 1981 squad for the 14th-most by the Big Red in a single season.
• On the other side of the ball, Cornell pitching has not allowed a home run in its last four games and previous 40 innings pitched, dating back to Kyle Vinci's sixth-inning home run against Princeton on March 24.
• Waugh extended his on-base streak to 22 games with his first-inning walk, while Jensen upped his on-base streak to 14 games with his first-inning home run. Junior center fielder
Jakobi Davis had his 20-game on-base streak snapped after failing to reach base in all four of his plate appearances.
UP NEXT
Cornell and Harvard will conclude its three-game series at Booth Field on Sunday with a doubleheader beginning at 11:30 a.m. Both games will be broadcast on ESPN+.
Sophomore left-hander
Noah Keller (0-1, 4.26 ERA) is scheduled to take the ball for Cornell in the opener against Harvard's Sean Matson (0-2, 3.13 ERA). In the nightcap, sophomore right-hander
Ethan Hamill (2-1, 4.33 ERA) will counter the Crimson's Callan Fang (1-2, 5.94 ERA), who is the reigning Ivy League Pitcher of the Week after his 12-strikeout outing against Brown last weekend.
