WACO, Texas (AP) — No. 12/15 Baylor baseball completed a sweep of visiting Cornell with a 12-4 victory on Sunday afternoon at Baylor Ballpark.
For the third-straight night, the Baylor offense was clicking, putting up double-digit runs with 12 runs coming on 16 hits.
Cole Haring led the way with a 4-RBI performance, including his second homer of the weekend, a three-run bomb in the seven-run seventh inning. He also added one more RBI on a single in the fifth inning.
Freshman catcher Kyle Harper also connected on his first-career homer, a two-run shot in the second inning.
Cornell got on the board first, plating two runs on two hits. The Bears answered right back, scoring two of their own in the bottom half of the inning on a two-run double by Davion Downey.
The Bears took a 9-2 lead in the bottom of the second inning and never looked back, plating seven runs on six hits, due in big part to Haring’s three-run homer and Harper’s two-run bomb. The Bears sent 11 men to the plate in the inning. Wendzel doubled home a run and Martinez brought home another run on his first-career hit, a double.
The Bears added one more in the fourth inning on a Josh Bissonette single and another in the fifth inning on a single by Haring to make it 11-2.
On the mound the Bears had shut down the Big Red offense after the first, as starter Cody Bradford put up a zero in the second, Jimmy Winston followed with a zero in the third and Anderson Needham was impressive through his first four innings of work, tying his career-high with six strikeouts until hitting a bump in the eighth inning. After a leadoff walk and a double, an infield single plated Cornell’s third run of the day. After Needham issued his second walk of the inning, the Bears went to the bullpen for lefty Ryan Leckich. Leckich was able to minimize damage, only allowing one more run on a sac fly to get the Bears out of the inning, leading 11-4.
The Bears once again answered Cornell’s offense with a run of their own in the bottom half of the inning on a sac fly by Richard Cunningham.
Needham earned his first collegiate win, throwing 4.0 solid innings of relief, while Cornell’s starter Jeb Bemiss took the loss.
NOTES
*Baylor improved to 4-0 all-time against Cornell. The Bears won the only previous matchup 6-5 on March 19, 1997.
*The Bears have won the first seven games of the season for the first time since 2017, when the team won its first 10 games, and fourth time since 1993 (’93, ’08, ’17, ’19).
*The Bears have scored 73 runs over the first seven games, the most since scoring 67 over the first seven in 1991 (The Bears went 6-1 over those games).
*Loftin has had at least 2 hits in 6-of-7 games on the season.
*Harper has driven in 2 runs in back-to-back games.
*Harper connected on his first career home run, a 2-run shot in the 2nd inning.
*Haring connected on his second home run of the season and drove in a season-high 4 RBIs on the day.
*Haring’s 3 hits were a season-high and tied his career high mark.
*Against Cornell, Wehsener is 7-for-13 with 5 RBI, 1 BB and 5 runs scored.
*Wendzel stole a career-high two bases.
*Martinez earned his first start of the season at DH and connected on his first hit of his career, a double. Finished the day 2-for-4 with 1 RBI, also the first in his career.
*Haring led the team with 4 RBIs on the day, but Downey and Harper each had 2 RBIs apiece.
*For the second-straight game Wendzel tied his career-high mark with 2 doubles.
*Nick Loftin extended his on-base streak to 14 games.
*Bissonette extended his on-base streak to 14 games.
*Davion Downey has a 10-game on-base streak and a team-leading nine-game hitting streak.
*Davis Wendzel has a seven-game hitting streak.
STAT OF THE DAY
73 – The number of runs the Bears have scored in their first seven games of the season. Overall, the Bears have outscored their opponents 73-18 to open the season.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
On finishing off another sweep…
“I think overall I was really happy with some of the small things we did. I thought we handled the bat a lot better today than yesterday. I thought we were really good on the bases. We had much better reads on balls in the dirt and had some good jumps on steals. Our bullpen did a really good job this weekend and minimized some of our hairy situations.”
Baylor Head Coach Steve Rodriguez
WHAT'S NEXT
The Bears will remain at home to host Dallas Baptist on Tuesday, Feb. 26 at 6:35 p.m. CT.
For tickets, visit: https://baylorbears.com/sports/2018/9/11/tickets.aspx. For updates on the program follow @baylorbaseball on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
