Utah softball head coach Amy Hogue reiterated this week that the Utes don’t necessarily shift their game to combat the strengths and weaknesses of the opponent they are playing, but instead focus on doing the things they need to do well to win regardless.
“We don’t worry so much about our opponent,” Hogue said. “Really, it’s about the things that we do. We coach them up on the things that they do well, not so much on about what Weber [or other teams] do that we have to defend.”
That said, Hogue did admit that she and the staff will share information about pitchers to the team, though.
“If there’s something in particular — like a scouting report on a pitcher — then we’ll share that information. Otherwise they’re [the team] just supposed to go out there and play the game that they know how to play, which has nothing to do with our opponent,” Hogue said.
Hogue commented that unlike football, where you match up against 12 opponents per year and have time to study them, softball has 56 games, so there is not a lot of time to “study the heck out of your opponent.”
Hogue says for the Utes to be successful, they need to take advantage of their strengths.
“Katie [Donovan] will throw the pitches that Katie’s good at, Miranda [Viramontes] will throw her pitches, our hitters will do their thing at the plate, and it really doesn’t matter that much about our opponent,” Hogue said.
Utes set season-highs at Cal — but not the positive kind
In the series last weekend at Cal, Utah set some season highs — but not the kind they wanted to record. In the April 8 game against the Bears, which the Utes lost 11-3, Utah set season-highs for runs allowed (11), earned runs allowed (10) and triples allowed (3).
Utah also matched season-highs for hits allowed in a single game (14), and wild pitches (2) during the 11-3 loss against Cal.
Pac-12 standings update
After going 1-2 in its road trip in Berkley, Calif. against the Golden Bears, Utah softball has dropped to fifth in the Pac-12, three spots down from last week when the Utes were second in the Conference of Champions. The next opportunity to climb up the conference standings for the Utes will be when they face No. 24 Arizona State at Dumke Family Softball Stadium this weekend in a three game series.
With so many errors in the last contest, shortstop Anissa Urtez hopes that the Utes will learn from the mistakes made in Berkeley.
“We aren’t happy with the outcome [at Cal], but I think we learned a few things throughout the series,” Urtez said. “We know we have more potential than that and we just have to get it together.”
@JoeColesChrony