Utah is off to a rough start in conference play with a 1-4 mark, so its home contest Wednesday against Idaho State may be just what the team needs to get on track.
The Utes have won just two of their last nine games and were recently swept by Oregon in a three-game series. They sit in eighth out of nine teams in the Pac-12 standings.
“We just need to turn the page on three days of losing,” said head coach Amy Hogue.
Part of Utah’s challenge in the early going of Pac-12 play is the fact that it’s played Washington and Oregon, which are both ranked in the Top 20 in the country. Despite the brutal schedule and bad start, Hogue said her team hasn’t been shaken mentally.
“No one intimidates these girls,” she said. “Someone may beat them, but no one intimidates them.”
Hogue has said throughout the season that her team doesn’t pay attention to its opponent. She prefers that players focus on themselves and learn from previous games. Even though Utah struggled against the Ducks, Hogue said there won’t be major changes against the Bengals.
“I don’t know if there [are] any adjustments we need to make,” she said. “We just have to kind of get our enthusiasm and energy back and get back to our winning ways.”
Even though thus far the Utes haven’t had much success in conference action, some individual players are off to nice starts. Kate Dickman is 11th in the Pac-12 in batting average with a .446 clip, and freshman Hannah Flippen isn’t far behind. She boasts a .432 average, good enough for 17th in the conference.
On the other side of the ball, Utah leads the Pac-12 in double plays with 19 in 23 games. The Utes were successful in this statistic a year ago but are still breaking in almost a completely new infield, yet they haven’t seemed to miss a beat.
The game against Idaho State will be at 5 p.m. at Utah Softball Stadium. After Wednesday’s contest, Utah will return to its conference schedule when it heads back out on the road to face UCLA this weekend.
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