This weekend the baseball team headed south for the milder conditions of Lewisburg, Pa., to face Bucknell.
Cornell contested the Bison for the first four games of its season last year, coming away with a 1-3 record against a team that never really gave the Red a chance to get on its feet. The sole victory of the weekend was by a score of 8-6 in which the Red put runs on the board in five of seven innings.
This year, the Red’s season started Saturday afternoon, and the team was forced to dive in head first with back-to-back double-headers. If Cornell was tired of playing catch within the confines of the multi-purpose room of the Field House, it would — for better or worse — log many hours under the cloud cover this weekend.
While the Red was still testing the water, Bucknell had already swum to the deep end. Entering its matches with the Red, the Bison had already played five games this year and survived with a 3-2 record. The three wins were garnered by scores of three or fewer runs, and the team was coming off a 10-9 victory that was claimed with a three-run eighth.
In college ball, to spare the health of the players, each game of a double-header is shortened to seven innings, while a single game is a normal nine-innings long.
Appropriately, junior Brendan McQuaid threw out the first pitch of the year. One of Cornell’s top deliverers last year, McQuaid had a team-high 6-2 record and the best earned run average, with a 5.17 mark.
In this contest, the Red limited the Bison to six-runs over six innings while knocking in nine of its own. But with only three outs needed to win its first game of the year, the Red’s wheels came off and the Bison scored three runs in the bottom of the seventh to tie the match at 9-9 and send it into extra innings.
Extra Innings
That was all the momentum Bucknell needed close out the victory, thanks to a scoreless eighth from the Red. The Bison converted in the bottom of the same inning to take the game by a final score of 10-9. Apparently this momentum carried the home team right through the second game which Bucknell took by a score of 4-1. The Bison had one home run and a triple in the victory.
The results of yesterday’s double-header were not available at print deadline.
Cornell will be back in action starting March 17 against Hartford during the team’s Florida spring break trip.
Archived article by Katherine Granish