During last year’s spring break, the baseball team made a trip it would hope not to repeat: the Red played nine games against teams in California ended up on the losing end of all of them. This season, Cornell opted instead for a short trip to Florida followed by a stop in West Point, NY. While the baseball team was not quite drawing attention away from Cornell’s basketball, hockey, and wrestling teams with its performance over the last week and a half, the Red (4-6, 0-0 Ivy) managed a far more respectable 3-5 record over this year’s spring break.Living in the present: The baseball team did not focus on its past; rather than going 0-9 as it did during spring break of 2009, the Red managed three wins this year. - By: Matt Hintsa

The Red opened its Florida trip with two games against Northwestern (6-17) of the Big Ten. On Sunday, March 21, junior pitcher Corey Pappel out-dueled Northwestern’s Eric Jokisch to help lead Cornell to victory. Pappel struck out nine while allowing two runs in six innings. Senior lefty Matt Hill surrendered a 3-2 Cornell lead in the seventh, but earned the victory after junior Mickey Brodsky singled home sophomore Brian Billigen in the bottom half of the inning. Senior closer Dave Rochefort pitched the ninth inning to record his first save of the season. In the first inning of that game, sophomore Marshall Yanzick hit his first career home run; the long ball plated two runs. 

The Red used a late rally to earn another victory over Northwestern the next day. The game was a back and forth affair and Cornell trailed 6-4 with no one on and two outs in the eighth inning. The Red then put together consecutive singles, a hit batter, a walk, and then two more singles to score four runs in the inning and re-take the lead. Junior catcher Mike Lopez hit a two-run home run in the game. Sophomore Brandon Lee – who typically starts ahead of Lopez – had two RBI in the big eighth inning after he had replaced Lopez.

The next stop for Cornell was Boca Raton. Last Tuesday and Wednesday, the Red squared off against Florida Atlantic (15-8) on the Owls’ home turf. In both games, the Owls jumped on Cornell early and put the Red in a hole it could not climb out of. The Red dropped the first game 10-5. In Wednesday’s game, FAU scored all three of its runs on a second inning home run from catcher Mike Albaladejo. Cornell scored a run apiece in the seventh and eighth innings, but was unable to manage a win during a game in which the team only surrendered two hits. The final score was FAU 3, Cornell 2.

The Red then returned to New York to play four games against Army (9-8) at West Point. The Red used another strong performance out of Pappel to earn a 10-4 victory in their first game against Army on Saturday. Billigen, Yanzick, Lee, senior Kyle Groth and sophomore Frank Hager each had two hits in the game.

With the win over Army, Pappel earned just his first win of the season, but he has established himself as his team’s ace with a team-leading 23 strikeouts already this season. No other Cornell pitcher has more than seven.

“[I’ve had a more] consistency with a lot of my pitches, especially my slider and curveball,” Pappel said. “Being able to throw both of those and the changeup for strikes really keeps hitters off balance.”

The rest of the weekend was a struggle for Cornell. Despite a strong performance by senior Tony Bertucci – who pitched a complete game – Cornell lost 4-2 in the second half of Saturday’s doubleheader. The Red was shut out 4-0 in Sunday’s first game. Then, in the final game of the weekend, Cornell fell 5-3.

Cornell has one more tune-up game Wednesday against LeMoyne before the team begins conference play this weekend.

 “Everybody hit their stride which we needed to do before Ivy play,” Billigen said. “The bats looked good. Everybody got the amount of experience they needed for Ivy ball. I feel pretty confident the spring break really helped us get ready for Ivy Ball.”