“The lives of the athletes are too easy.” These are the words that many of us have heard from fellow Cornellians. However, being a Cornell athlete is not as simple as it may seem. They have to deal with all the demanding training and preparation that competitive sports require, in addition to the academic pressures of Cornell.

While you are at home having a good time or at some Caribbean island enjoying a nice weather during Spring Break, the baseball team will play a total of nine games in a span of eight days.

Cornell (1-1) will play all of its games away from Hoy Field during Spring Break, starting its road trip at Winter Haven, Fla. against Northwestern (4-10).

The Red will play the Wildcats at 10 a.m. on Sunday. This will be Cornell’s third contest of the season –– the first two games of the season were against local opponent Binghamton, where Cornell came out with a victory and a loss.

Northwestern, on the other hand, has already played in 14 games since its season started in Feb. 19. The Wildcats extended time on the field this season can work as an advantage against the Red, which has only participated in two matchups because of weather conditions in addition to its late start of the season.

Northwestern will come to Florida with a two-game losing streak after falling twice to U.N.L.V. The team has a respectable .285 batting average for the season, with 69 runs scored in total. Hit the road Jack: The baseball team continues non-conference play, traveling to Winter Haven, Fla. to take on Northwestern in its third game of the young 2010 season. - By: Dan Salisbury

However, its starting pitching rotation and bullpen are struggling and are the main reason why the Wildcats have a losing record. Opposing teams have a .329 batting average with 120 runs scored against Northwestern’s pitching staff. The team has a 6.43 collective ERA in 119 innings pitched –– compared to a 4.48 ERA mark put up by its opponents in 126.2 innings.

Although it is too early in the season to make a notable comparison, it is worthy to mention that the Red’s pitching staff has allowed seven runs in its first two games, compared to the 33 that the Wildcats allowed in their initial pair of matchups.

On the offensive side, Cornell scored 10 runs total in its first two games; Northwestern was able to tally runs on only six different occasions for its first two games of the season.