The men’s baseball team has had quite a ride since its return from a 4-3 Spring Break in Florida. It has yet to play a game on home turf. There is no doubt that any weatherman who ventured into this gloomy town would have a hard time guessing, let alone predicting, what the sky will unleash every day. However, last week the forecast was unnaturally consistent.
Over the past five days, the men should have played six games at Hoy Field, but it rained and snowed, and all those games were canceled.
Last Wednesday, the Big Red was penciled in for a double-header against Le Moyne. The snow-covered field was unplayable, and, hoping for a heat wave to move in overnight, the games were moved to Thursday. Shockingly, the clouds remained overhead, and the games were postponed to a later date.
This weekend, Cornell (5-6, 1-1 Ivy) was supposed to host doubleheaders against Brown and Yale to open the Ivy League season, but yet again, the sky was the limit. Although the two games with Brown will have to be played at a later date, the Red was able to travel to New Haven, Conn., and play the Bulldogs at their place yesterday.
In the first game, junior Brendan McQuaid (2-0) took the mound. The victor in a 5-2 win over Drexel, he pitched eight innings to wrap up the annual spring trip.
This would be the first game the team had played in for eight days, and it took a few innings for the Red to get reacquainted with that feeling.
Yale (6-9, 2-2) struck first in the top of the third. With two outs, the Bulldogs knocked three straight singles to drive in one run before that rally was quenched. They followed up that performance with another run in the top of the fourth. That two-run lead after five innings seemed monumental considering 10 Cornell players had struck out over the first 15 outs of the game.
The Red suddenly lit up in the sixth to score two runs off four singles, but left the bases loaded.
Both teams were relatively quiet until the ninth inning. McQuaid had pitched a hitless seventh and eighth, but was greeted in the next inning with a single, followed by two ground outs to send the runner to third base.
Senior David Self relieved McQuaid, but gave up a single that plated the go ahead run before getting out of the inning.
In the bottom of the inning, junior Andrew Luria was walked with one out. Mills singled him to third, and after a walk to junior Erik Rico that loaded the bases, Luria came home on a ground out to the pitcher. A pop-up ended the inning and sent the game to the tenth.
Yale capitalized on the Red’s only error of the game to score three runs off one hit, a home run with one man on base. Cornell could only manage a one run response, and succumbed in a 6-4 loss.
For the Red, Mills went 2-for-4 at the plate and sophomore Tony Depalo was 2-for-5 including an RBI. McQuaid pitched 8-2/3 innings, gave up eight hits and three runs, all earned, while striking out two. Notably, Cornell left 12 runners on base, while Yale stranded six.
Thirty minutes after the end of that three-hour marathon, the second game commenced.
Yet again, the Bulldogs got on the board first with one run in the opening minutes of play, but Cornell responded with three runs of its own in the bottom of the second off two hits and an error. Yale knocked in another run in the third, but Cornell again sent three men around the bases off two hits.
The fourth saw the Red add another run to its total, but the team broke open the game in the fifth with four runs and four hits: a single, two doubles, and a three-RBI homer by junior Vince Santo.
The Bulldogs nipped at Cornell’s 11-2 lead in the sixth with three runs, but their offense was promptly shut down for the final three innings with solid pitching from sophomore John Hardy and freshmen Daniel Gala and Chris Schutt.
Cornell was not finished for the night, as the team sent two more men home in the seventh, thanks to another two-RBI homer from Santo, and one more in the eighth to top off a 14-5 muzzling.
The Red combined for 16 hits and five players with two or more hits on the night. Senior Flint Foley went 3-for-4 with four RBI, junior Justin Irizarry was 4-for-5 with one RBI, Santo was 2-for-3 with 5 RBI, Depalo turned in another good game at the plate by going 2-for-4 with one RBI, and Rico rounded out the bunch with a 2-for-5 showing.
Rico pitched 5-2/3 innings with five earned runs, five strike outs, and three walks.
Cornell will be back in action at home this Wednesday with a double-header against Penn State starting at 1 p.m. The games will be played at Hoy Field.
Hopefully by then, Mother Nature will have forgotten her earnest effort to interrupt every single one of Cornell’s home games.
Archived article by Katherine Granish