The Utah women’s softball team is heading into the BYU rivalry game on a high note.
The Utes are coming off a day with 26 hits and eight home runs against Southern Utah University on Wednesday, their best hitting day this season.
The last time the Utes faced BYU, they were coming off a three-game win streak over Utah State, but, despite riding a high note, got crushed 26-2 in the two-game series.
Utah’s hitting will have to continue to be powerful if it hopes to have any chance against the BYU team that accumulated 31 hits and 26 runs in the two previous games.
As for losses, Utah scored only two runs, both solo home runs, and earned a total of nine hits.
Utah’s batting has improved steadily since that point as it is averaging 8.5 hits per game in its past seven games.
The Utes’ batting isn’t the only thing that is going to need to be strong in order to beat BYU, which is currently No. 1 in the Mountain West Conference and the only team which has yet to lose a conference game. Utah’s pitching staff, which has been struggling as of late because of injuries, will also need to be at the top of its game to beat the Cougars.
BYU has seven players batting over .300 and 10 players with an on-base percentage better than .300. Utah pitchers will need to limit the Cougars in both areas to get a win out of Saturday’s game. Several of BYU’s runs in the past matchup were scored because of uncharacteristic fielding errors by the Utes, which head coach Amy Hogue at the time attributed to lack of outdoor practice.
With several days of nice practice weather behind them, the Utes should be able to correct those errors easily, but struggled against SUU as they committed five errors in the doubleheader on Wednesday.
The odds are not in Utah’s favor as BYU hasn’t lost a game in more than a month and is coming into the game on a 13-game win streak, with an overall record of 32-14.
Utah has an overall record of 19-27 and is sitting at the bottom of the MWC with a 1-6 conference record.
First pitch is set for 2 p.m. Saturday in Provo. The game will be televised live on BYU-TV and will be rebroadcast Sunday at noon on The Mtn.
Richard PaysonAssistant Coach Adrian Gregory speaks to the team between innings. The Utes got their bats going against SUU Wednesday and they hope to keep it going against BYU this weekend.