Hoping that being swept last weekend by New Mexico was just a fluke, the U baseball team will try to turn things around quickly against UNLV.

“It is important to bounce back this weekend, but we are not going to panic,” said U coach Tim Esmay. “Our team played well up until last week, and now we just have to hope it was one of those weekends.”

The Utes have amassed a record of 12-11, with most of those games on the road, except for two against Southern Utah.

UNLV comes into the game with a record of 10-13, and, like the Utes, was swept in its conference-opening series, against BYU.

“They are in the same boat as us, and one team is going to come out of this series feeling pretty good and the other team will be wondering what to do,” Esmay said.

Utah’s starting pitching did not perform up to par last weekend, as the U’s hurlers were shelled in every single game they played.

“Hopefully the pitching performance last week was a fluke for our starting pitchers,” Esmay said.

It must get better, or else the same type of series the Utes had last week will happen again in Las Vegas, as the starting rotation may be the exact same rotation that was put in last week.

“Jason [Wylie] and Cheyenne [Rushton] will play the first two games, but it all depends if Mitch [Maio] plays in the first two games [in relief],” Esmay said.

If Maio does pitch in any of the first two games, then he will not start the third game.

Despite those three straight losses, there was one thing that was encouraging to Esmay.

“Our team is really starting to swing it well, and we had five or six guys who hit the ball really well,” Esmay said.