With the odds stacked against it, the Crimson will need to take things “a pitch at a time,” according to second baseman Brendan Byrne.

“This week of practice,” Byrne says, “[hasn’t been] any different [from] any other week. The series’ implications may be bigger, but it’s still just another Ivy series and four baseball games.”

And that, Byrne says, is why Harvard shouldn’t sweat the season’s big breaking point.

“We have swept teams and taken three out of four before,” he says. “So there’s no reason why this weekend should be any different.”

The Crimson, after all, has plenty on its side going into the Ivies’ final weekend.

For one, they have a Player of the Year candidate of their own: Hendricks, who is batting .410—good for second in the Ivies, and 34th in the nation—and leads the Crimson with a 3.76 ERA and 41 strikeouts off the mound. The two-way star’s eight wins tie him for twelfth in Division I.

Harvard also has the league home run leader, shortstop Zak Farkes (10 HR); a hot-hitting catcher, Schuyler Mann (9-14, 2 HR last weekend); and a three-game winning streak—with two of the wins coming in the Crimson’s last at-bat. Not to mention, says Byrne, the “luxury of not having to worry about what other people do.”

“There are five teams in our league who have nothing to play for right now,” he says, “so I think we should be excited with where we are.”

Hendricks, for one, couldn’t be more excited. “You’ve got to love playing in the big games,” he says.

Lucky for him, these games couldn’t be any bigger.

—Staff writer Alex McPhillips can be reached at rmcphill@fas.harvard.edu.