By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Insider
            Steve Rodriguez could look long and hard and not find anything negative about a weekend that saw his No. 12/15 Baylor Bears outscore visiting Cornell, 39-7. 
            In Sunday's series finale, Kyle Harper and Cole Haring homered in a seven-run second-inning explosion and the Bears (7-0) rapped out 16 hits in capping off their second straight sweep with a 12-4 win over the visiting Big Red (0-3) from New York. 
            "Overall, I was really happy with some of the small things we did," Rodriguez said. "I thought we handled the bat a lot better today than we did (Saturday). . . . Really happy with some of our guys coming off the bench and doing some different things. Our bullpen did a really good job this weekend, coming in and minimizing some hairy situations. I was really happy with what we saw."
            Baylor hit .405 as a team in the three-game series with 18 extra-base hits and 17 walks while holding Cornell to a .170 batting average with more than twice as many strikeouts (34) as base hits (16). The Bears' bullpen was especially effective, compiling a 1.17 ERA and giving up just two runs on seven hits in 15 1/3 innings. 
            "It's feeling good, we're all seeing the ball pretty well," said Haring, who was 3-for-5 with 4 RBI on Sunday. "Hopefully, we can take what we did this weekend and take it into Tuesday against DBU and next weekend in Houston."
            Cornell took its first lead of the series in the top of the first inning, when Will Simoneit drilled a two-run home run over the right-field wall after a leadoff single by Justin Taylor off Baylor starter Cody Bradford. 
            Wasting no time, the Bears answered with two runs in the bottom of the first off Jeb Bemiss with consecutive doubles by Nick Loftin, Davis Wendzel and Davion Downey. 
            After Bradford worked around a pair of walks in the second, Baylor sent 11 batters to the plate in the bottom half of the inning and took the lead for good on Harper's first collegiate homer, a towering two-run shot that easily cleared the left-field wall. 
            "I knew I squared it up," said Harper, who's hitting .400 as an injury replacement at catcher for junior All-American Shea Langeliers. "It was one of those where you can't feel it off the bat. I knew the wind was crossing, so I was thinking, 'OK, this is either out or it's going to be a deep fly ball and he's going to catch it.' I thought it was going to go, though."
            Wendzel scored a run with his second double of the game and sixth of the season, then Haring crushed a three-run homer to left-center field. Freshman Ricky Martinez, making his first start, doubled just inside the third-base bag to give the Bears a 9-2 lead. 
            "They had been throwing me pretty much off-speed first pitch every time," Haring said. "So, I just sat off-speed, and they threw it to me. I didn't think it was going out, but we had a little different wind today, so thank God for that."
            Baylor extended the lead to 11-2 with single runs in the fourth and fifth inning on RBI singles by Josh Bissonette and Haring off reliever Jon Zacharias. 
            After a scheduled short start by Bradford, Jimmy Winston tossed a scoreless third and freshman Anderson Needham (1-0) went four strong innings, striking out six and eliminating two hits with double-play grounders. 
            But just like last Sunday, when he took a no-hitter into the fifth, Needham seemed to hit the wall in his fifth inning of work. The Big Red's first four batters reached base in the eighth with two walks, a double and a run-scoring single by Ramon Garza before Ryan Leckich came on to limit the damage, the only other run coming across on a sac fly. 
            "He's got so much stuff that looks so good," Harper said of Needham, a 6-4 right-hander that threw 71 pitches in four-plus innings. "It's maybe a little bit of that stamina, slowing down toward the fifth inning. Certanily not a mentality thing. The guy's got a great mentality on the mound, just striking everybody out. He looks really good, so we're confident in what he can do."
            The Bears added another run in the bottom half of the eighth, with pinch-hitter Cole Weaver reaching on a single to right, going to third on a Harper double and coming home on Richard Cunningham's sac fly. 
            "I'm really happy with how our guys are swinging the bat right now," Rodriguez said. "Considering we don't have our whole lineup in there, I'm really excited with what we're seeing."
            Baylor finishes its eight-game home stand with a matchup against Dallas Baptist (5-2) at 6:35 p.m. Tuesday before playing Texas A&M, Rice and Texas State next weekend in the Shriners Hospital for Children Classic at the Houston Astros' Minute Maid Park. DBU swept its season-opening series against Kent State and took two of three from Minnesota after a 4-2 loss at Oklahoma. 


WACO, Texas – 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 2^ndinning.  
 
*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.


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