Trailing 2-0 in the top of the sixth inning, center fielder Nick Cox singled to third base and then stole second, putting a runner in scoring position with nobody out. After Cox, Jason Banos walked, Henry Perkins singled in Cox, and Mike Roberts doubled in Banos and Perkins. This late-inning barrage propelled the Columbia baseball team to a win in its first game of the weekend at Gehrig Division foe Cornell. After that first game, the team would not need to come from behind again, as Cox sparked the offense to score early and often in Ithaca to claim a three-game division lead.
Princeton, after sweeping Penn on Saturday, fell to them twice Sunday for a split, while Columbia took three of four on the weekend, making a trip to the Ivy Championship game a near certainty.
In the first game of Saturday’s doubleheader, the Lions added to their one-run lead in the seventh as Cox hit his first collegiate grand slam, extending the team lead to five.
Cox was an integral part of nearly every big Columbia inning. In the top of first in the second game of Saturday’s doubleheader, Cox started the game off with a single and another stolen base to score on a passed ball later. After a walk, a hit by pitch, and two more singles, Columbia was up three runs before Cornell had a chance to bat.
After the Big Red responded with three runs of its own, Cox led off the second wreaking havoc on the bases once again. After a bunt single, he advanced to second on a passed ball and then engineered a double steal with Banos to move over to third, scoring on a Perkins sacrifice fly.
The Light Blue tacked on three total runs in the inning and, despite two runs from Cornell in the bottom of the fourth, maintained its lead the entire game in a 7-2 victory. Cox went 5-for-8 with three runs scored and four RBI on Saturday alone. The Lions drew 11 walks in the first double header, one-tenth of its annual total.
Sunday started off much as Saturday ended with Columbia scoring five runs in the first two innings of the early game. Cox was back on base from the first at-bat, walking, advancing to second on a wild pitch and scoring on a Banos single up the middle.
After the three-run first, Cox and fellow freshman Alex Ferrera scored a run apiece in the top of the second but only after Cox stole his fourth base of the weekend.
Columbia cruised along for much of the game, leading 7-4 heading into the bottom of the sixth when the Big Red exploded for seven runs off John Baumann, Max Lautmann, and Clay Bartlett.
Despite the loss, Perkins drove in four runs, Noah Cooper tallied four hits, and Cox scored three runs. This weekend continued the Light Blue Ivy trend of scoring more runs each weekend than the last.
The final six runs were added in the weekend’s last game. The Lions entered still two games up on Princeton in the Gehrig Division with just four games to play next weekend.
A sequence of errors and misplays gave the Lions their first run in the top of the fourth while a triple, double, and two singles brought three more in the sixth. The team rode senior Bill Purdy’s seven-inning outing to its third victory of the weekend, adding insurance runs in the seventh and ninth.
The win, combined with Princeton’s 5-4 loss in the second game of its doubleheader, put Columbia firmly in the divisional driver’s seat. Only Rolfe Division leader Dartmouth, at 12-4, has a better record in league play, and the Lions already split a two-game set with the Big Green.
In collecting three wins on the road, the baseball team scored first in three of the four games and led after two innings in three of them as well. In cases like this—when the Lions are ahead after two—the team is 9-5. When the Lions trail after two, they are 3-12.
If the Lions continue these hot starts next weekend against Penn, it may be even harder for them to lose the divisional title, which would require both four losses and four Princeton wins to fall one game behind.