Cornell (15-19, 11-10 Ivy League) vs. Princeton (17-24, 12-9 Ivy League)
When	May 17
Where	New York, N.Y. // Robertson Field at Satow Stadium
Watch	Friday
Radio	None
Live Stats	Friday
Notes	Cornell | Princeton

 

Probable Starting Pitchers
Day	Cornell		Princeton
Fri. 11 a.m. ET	LHP Noah Keller (1-5, 6.30 ERA)		RHP Sean Episcope (0-4, 6.47 ERA)

ITHACA, N.Y. — Appearing in its first postseason contest in 12 years, the No. 3-seeded Cornell baseball team squares off against No. 2-seeded Princeton in the first game of the 2024 Ivy League Baseball Tournament on Friday morning from Robertson Field at Satow Stadium in New York City.

LAST TIME OUT
Cornell prevented being swept by Brown in its final regular-season series against Brown with a 9-4 victory over the Bears at Attanasio Family Field at Murray Stadium on May 5 in Providence, R.I. Brown registered victories of 11-2 and 13-12 in 10 innings the day before to solidify the series victory.

Junior infielder Max Jensen batted a team-high .571 in the series against Brown, going 8-for-14 with a double and five RBI. Junior outfielder Kyle Musser went 5-for-10 at the plate, while freshman catcher Mark Quatrani also hit over .400, going 4-for-9 (.444) with four RBI. Senior second baseman Matt Barnhorst hit both of Cornell's home runs as part of a 3-for-13 weekend, chipping in a double and a team-best eight RBI.

Sophomore right-handed pitcher Ethan Hamill recorded the lone victory of the weekend for the Big Red after registering his fourth quality start of the season. Hamill allowed three runs (two earned) and scattered four hits in his six-inning outing. Junior left-handed pitcher William Jaun pitched the final three innings to earn his first collegiate save.

BACK TO POSTSEASON BASEBALL
Cornell is playing baseball in a postseason setting for the fifth time in program history (1977, 2005, 2009, 2012, 2024) and the first instance since 2012, when it clinched the Ivy League's automatic qualifier for the 2012 NCAA Division I Baseball Tournament after defeating Dartmouth in the best-of-three-game 2012 Ivy League Championship Series at Hoy Field, the Big Red's former on-campus home of 101 years.

A victory this weekend will be Cornell's first postseason win since posting a 3-1 victory over Dartmouth in 11 innings to solidify the Big Red's spot in the NCAA Tournament. Then-sophomore outfielder Chris Cruz hit a two-run, walk-off home run to send Cornell to its second-ever NCAA Tournament appearance, the first for the program since 1977.

ONE WIN AWAY
Dan Pepicelli, the Ted Thoren Head Coach of Cornell Baseball, is one win away from becoming the fourth Big Red skipper to amass 100 career wins with the program.

With a win this weekend, Pepicelli would join the likes of the program's all-time winningest head coach, Ted Thoren (515 wins from 1962-90), former head coach and current associate head coach Tom Ford (263 wins from 1991-2008), and former Big Red infielder and head coach Bill Walkenbach (130 wins from 2009-15) on the list.

TURNING THE CORNER
Cornell concluded the regular-season Ancient Eight slate with an 11-10 record, its first winning season and highest win total in league play since logging an 11-9 mark during the 2013 campaign.

Cornell's 11 conference wins are tied with the teams from 1977, 1984, 2000, 2005, and 2013 for the fourth-most wins in conference games in program history since joining the since-disbanded EIBL in 1930. Only the teams from 2012 (14), 1982 (12), and 1998 (12) had more league victories.

The Big Red's 15 overall victories in 2024 are the second-highest total under Dan Pepicelli, trailing the 21-17 record posted in Pepicelli's second year at the post in 2017.

DIGGING THE LONG BALL
Cornell has hit 46 home runs this season, marking the most by the Big Red in a single season in the program's 153-year history, besting the previous mark of 38 (2009).

Freshman catcher Mark Quatrani registered the record-breaking blast with a leadoff home run in the sixth inning of Cornell's 14-11 setback in the opening game of the April 27 twin bill against Columbia at Booth Field.

Cornell, with a flair for the dramatic, has hit seven grand slams, the most in a season on record in program history. The seven grand slams — including a pair of multi-grand slam games — match the program's combined output over the previous eight seasons it has competed in, totaling nine years.

RAREFIED COMPANY
Junior outfielder John Quinlan and junior infielder Max Jensen have been two of Cornell's most reliable hitters since the beginning of Ivy League play against Princeton on March 22.

Quinlan mustered 42 hits in conference games, assuming Cornell's program record for the most hits in conference play in program history. He is also just one of two players in EIBL / Ivy League history with 40-plus hits in conference games in a season, joining former Dartmouth infielder Tyler Cox, who had 45 hits in 2022.

Jensen has also excelled against Ancient Eight opponents this season, amassing 37 base knocks to place him in a five-way tie with Yale's Dan Thompson (1995), Brown's Joe Lomuscio (2019), Columbia's Joe Engel (2019), and Harvard's Jake Suddleson (2019) for the sixth-most hits in EIBL / Ivy League history.

The Cornell duo is the first pair of teammates in the history of the EIBL and Ivy League to record at least 37 hits in the same season.

Should Jensen record one more hit this season, he would join Quinlan as the third pair of Big Red teammates with 50-plus hits in a season, joining Ken Veenema (56) and Dave Johnson (50) in 1977 and Brian Billigen (57) and Frank Hager (52) in 2012. Both instances resulted in Cornell earning a spot in that year's NCAA Tournament.

First-year catcher Mark Quatrani has hit nine home runs in his freshman campaign, the most ever recorded by a first-year player in Cornell program history.

Quatrani's nine home runs have eclipsed Cornell's previous freshman single-season home run record of six, which stood for 29 years after Bill Walkenbach, who later became the Big Red's head coach from 2009-15, hit six home runs in 1996 to beat five-home run efforts by Marlin McPhail in 1979 and Mike Milmoe in 1986.

Q'S PROVIDING THE A'S
Junior outfielder John Quinlan and freshman Mark Quatrani have been one of Cornell's most reliable hitters since the beginning of Ivy League play against Princeton on March 22.

Quinlan has hit for a .434 average over his last 23 games, going 46-of-106 with six doubles, two triples, four home runs, and 16 RBI.

This season, Quinlan's .424 average (42-for-99) against Ancient Eight opposition ranked second in the Ivy League behind Penn's Wyatt Henseler (.438), who claimed this year's Blair Bat, awarded to the Ivy League's batting average leader in regular-season conference games.

Quatrani, who batted .333 with seven home runs in Ivy League contests, hit the most home runs in regular-season conference games in program history, besting six-home run outputs produced by Raul Gomez (2001), Brian Kaufman (2006) and Sam Kaplan (2022).

Quatrani's seven Ivy League home runs in conference contests ranked third behind Henseler (10) and Columbia's Sam Miller (8).

Paired with his home runs, Quatrani's 30 RBI led all Ivy League batters in RBI while ranking sixth in EIBL / Ivy League history. The 30 ribbies by Quatrani are the most by a Cornell player in conference games in a single season, surpassing the previous mark of 29 initially set in 2006 by Brian Kaufman.

QUINLAN'S HOT BAT
Junior outfielder John Quinlan enters Friday with a 1.73 hits per game average, ranking as the sixth-highest average among Division I hitters who have played at least 75 percent of their team's games.

Rutgers' Joshua Kuroda-Grauer leads the nation with his 1.80 hits-per-game average, three points ahead of Georgia phenom Charlie Condon. The others in front of Quinlan include UTSA's Mason Lytle (1.77), Austin Peay's Clayton Gray (1.74), and Wright State's Sammy Sass (1.74).

Harvard's Ben Rounds has the second-highest hits-per-game average by an Ivy League player (1.61), which ranks 28th nationally.

TOUGH TO SET DOWN
Junior infielder Max Jensen enters Friday's game ranked as the 23rd-toughest batter to strikeout in Division I baseball, averaging a strikeout every 12.0 at-bats.

Among Ivy League hitters, Jensen's average is 2.75 points better than Yale's Alec Atkinson (16 SO in 148 at-bats — 9.8 percent), who ranks 86th nationally.

This season, Jensen has an Ivy League-leading 7.0 strikeout rate (11 strikeouts in 158 plate appearances) that ranks 22nd nationally. His 11 strikeouts are tied with East Tennesee State's Tommy Barth for the eighth-fewest by a Division I batter with at least two at-bats per game played.

LOOKING TO EXTEND THEIR STREAKS
Senior catcher Nathan Waugh enters Friday's game riding a 38-game on-base streak, the longest by a Big Red player since Nathan Ford concluded his Big Red career with a 42-game streak over the 2008 (last two games) and 2009 (40 games).

During his on-base streak, which dates back to last season, Waugh is slashing .292/.417/.514 with eight doubles, eight home runs, 34 RBI, 39 runs, and 26 walks.

Junior infielder Max Jensen owns a 14-game hit streak entering Friday's contest, marking the fourth Big Red player to register hits in at least 10 consecutive games played this season, joining Waugh (19 games), Caden Wildman (11 games), and Mark Quatrani (10 games).

WHEN IT RUNS, IT POURS
Cornell has shown a knack for scoring runs in bundles this season, as 198 of its 239 runs have come in multi-run innings (82.8 percent of its run production).

The Big Red has 59 multi-run innings this season and has logged at least one inning with two-plus runs in 29 of its 34 games (85.3 percent of games played). Two weekends ago, 21 of the Big Red's 23 runs against Brown came in multi-run frames (91.3 percent).

SCOUTING PRINCETON
Princeton enters this weekend's Ivy League Tournament with a 17-24 overall record and went 12-9 in Ivy League play, concluding Ancient Eight play in second place. The Tigers dropped its last two regular-season contests against Columbia, 8-7 and 9-1, but has posted a 7-4 over its previous 11 games.

Jake Koonin leads Princeton in numerous offensive categories, including batting average (.329), hits (49), slugging percentage (.537), OPS (.951), doubles (19), RBI (40), and stolen bases (11), while serving as one of four Tigers players to have played in all of the program's 41 games this season.

Jake Bold (.306/.429/.463) joins Koonin as the only other Princeton player with a batting average north of .300 while boasting a team-leading .429 on-base percentage, drawing a team-best 31 walks. Kyle Vinci (.189/.266/.348) has hit a team-best seven home runs.

Jacob Faulkner has an Ivy League-leading seven wins on the year to go along with his team-best 3.16 ERA after appearing in 19 games, one of which was a start. He has struck out 49 batters in 57 innings and issued just 11 walks while holding opponents to a .239 batting average.

135 YEARS, 221 MILES, 264 MEETINGS
Friday's meeting between Cornell and Princeton will be the 265th all-time contest between the Ivy League rivals, dating back to the inaugural game played on May 19, 1888, in Princeton, N.J. It will be the first-ever game between the programs played at a neutral site.

Princeton owns the series lead over Cornell, 161-101-2, and has won 11 of the last 14 contests. Cornell snapped its six-game losing streak to the Tigers with a 15-2 victory this past March 24, preventing being swept in a three-game series at Clarke Field. The Big Red's 13-run victory was Cornell's largest over Princeton since posting a 23-3 win in the nightcap of an April 28, 2000 doubleheader at Hoy Field, Cornell's former on-campus facility of 101 years.

May 17 is the first time Cornell and Princeton are playing in May since a May 1, 2011 doubleheader on Hoy Field. It is the latest that the Big Red and Tigers will face each other in precisely 55 years (May 17, 1969), when Princeton prevailed by a 5-3 score, also on Hoy Field.

ON THIS DATE AGAINST PRINCETON
Cornell is 0-2 all-time against Princeton on May 17, and it will be the first meeting on that date since the aforementioned contest in 1969. Both contests took place at the Big Red's friendly confines in Ithaca.

The first contest on Percy Field in 1913 featured Princeton coming away with an 11-4 triumph behind a 14-hit barrage off Cornell pitchers Sidney Edlund and Arthur Acheson. A first-inning home run by Pius Keller Jr. — which gave Cornell a 2-0 lead before conceding 10 unanswered Princeton runs between the second to seventh innings — was "one of the longest hits ever seen on the local field," per an excerpt from the May 18, 1913 edition of the Boston Globe.