“We’re obviously going to need a lot of production all the way through the lineup,” Ricciardone said. “We have a lot of games, so our entire pitching staff, all four of us, need to be ready to go and throw a lot of innings.”

Despite the intensity of the competition, Harvard is hoping to use this tournament as a metric for improvement and to gain experience against high quality teams.

The squad views the weekend as another chance to develop its game to meet one of its biggest goals for the season: to recapture the Ancient Eight crown after failing to reach the championship series last year for the first time since 2009.

“We’re planning to take [this tournament] game by game,” Olson said. “Overall, we’re hoping to leave with a pretty good win percentage.”

“Our main goal at the end of the day is to just play as well as we can play.... As long as we play our best we’ll be happy. We’re not really going in with any expectations [but rather we would like to] play ourselves into a better spot,” she added.

Overall, the Crimson is looking forward to playing in front of some familiar faces while soaking in a few rays during spring break.

Seven Harvard players hail from the Golden State.

“We’re excited to get back on the road,” Allard said. “California is a great trip for us and we’re looking forward to having a lot of families and fans out there, and [the chance] to play in nice weather.”