Red Rolfe Title To Be Decided

When it comes down to it, every team’s season has a breaking point.

Some seasons are decided at different points than others. Developments can uplift a team early—a confidence-boosting spring break swing through Texas; or take it down late—Aaron “Bleeping” Boone.

They can raise a squad’s fortunes gradually—the bats, and the team’s playoff chances, heat up; or drop them in a heartbeat—a star player goes down with an injury.

Make no mistake about the Harvard baseball team’s season. With the current situation in the Red Rolfe division, the time to win is now.

“We control our own destiny at this point,” co-captain Trey Hendricks says. “And that’s all we can ask for.”

The 2004 season has treated the Crimson (18-15-1, 11-5 Ivy) to its fair share of highlights and lowlights, from a torrid seven-game Ivy win streak in early April to a disappointing series loss at Yale soon after. For the first half of the season, the team owned the Red Rolfe division lead. It’s spent the rest of the time trying to snatch it back from Dartmouth (23-12, 13-3).

The Ivy season ends this weekend. The final match-up? Dartmouth vs. Harvard. Four games for a crack at the postseason. And at least three of those are must wins for the Crimson.

Down two games in the division, Harvard will take on the Big Green for two at O’Donnell Field on Saturday and two in Hanover, N.H. on Sunday.

The Crimson needs to take three to tie, in which case it will wager its chances on a playoff. If Harvard sweeps, it will face Princeton, most likely, for a rematch of last year’s Ivy League Championship Series.

Ready?

“Of course we’re ready,” Hendricks says. “We’ve been playing all season to get ourselves into a position to win the league, and that’s what we’ve done. Now we need to take care of business on the field.”

If it were only that easy. Since the Crimson lost to Yale on April 17—relinquishing the division lead to the Big Green—Dartmouth is undefeated in Ivy play, having made mincemeat of the Bulldogs and generally everyone else.

The Big Green—batting .330 as a team overall—is cranking out a devastating 10.8 runs per game since that time. Five Dartmouth regulars boast averages of .330 or better. Shortstop Ed Lucas, the current favorite for Ivy League Player of the Year, was batting .474 entering the week, best in all of Division I.

“I know Dartmouth can hit the ball,” said Hendricks, who will start on the mound against the Big Green. “But I can’t take the mound with a different mindset than any other game I pitch.”

Hendricks’ attitude will be important for the whole team this weekend—not just for the pitchers.

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.