PROVO, Utah — After a Big 12 bye week, BYU softball resumes conference play this week, visiting Houston at Cougar Softball Stadium for the first time as members of the league.
The Cougars (16-6, 1-2 Big 12) played a mid-week game at Utah Tech last week, but had their home-opening doubleheader against Idaho State postponed due to weather. Game one at UH will be nine days since BYU's last action on the diamond.
| BYU @ Houston | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Game | Date | Time | Stream | Live Stats |
| Game 1 | Thursday, Mar. 20 | 6 p.m. CDT | ESPN+ | Stat Broadcast |
| Game 2 | Friday, Mar. 21 | 6 p.m. CDT | ESPN+ | Stat Broadcast |
| Game 3 | Saturday, Mar. 22 | Noon CDT | ESPN+ | Stat Broadcast |
Tied for fourth in the Big 12 with three-way log jams in second and third, the Cougars took a week off of league play last week along with Iowa State and Kansas. Utah began conference play last week after a Big 12 bye in week one.
The Cougars picked up their fifth run-rule victory of the season in a 14-0 win against the Trailblazers in St. George last week. BYU's bats got off to a hot start and remained on the attack throughout the contest, tying a season high with 15 total hits.
Lily Owens, Ilove'a Brittingham, Maddie Udall-Woolley and Aleia Agbayani each finished with two or more hits in the game, with Brittingham hammering her team-leading sixth home run of the year and Agbayani carding a career-high six RBI.
Kaysen Korth pitched four innings of one-hit ball en route to her ninth win of the season, striking out four in the game. The righty was named to D1 Softball's Pitcher Power Rankings later in the week, coming in at No. 20 on the outlet's list.
Left-handed pitcher Gianna Mares came in to close things out in the fifth, her first action of the 2025 campaign after pitching 82 innings across 29 appearances and 21 starts last season.
Despite playing just one game last week, the Cougars remain in the top 20 nationally in five statistical categories as a team: double plays per game (No. 6, 0.68), ERA (No. 9, 1.94), total double plays (No. 14, 15), strikeout-to-walk ratio (No. 20, 3.05) and WHIP (No. 20, 1.13). BYU also ranks in the top 50 in five other categories: home runs per game, fielding percetnage, sacrifice bunts, shutouts and stikeouts per seven innings.
The Cougars are represented individually by a trio of student-athletes, led by Korth, who ranks fourth in the country in svaes (4), eighth in ERA (0.84) and 18th in WHIP (0.85). Brittingham's 1.23 RBI per game are No. 31 nationwide, while Lindy Milkowski is No. 32 with seven runners caught stealing.
Resuming Big 12 play, BYU makes its first trip to Houston since the 2006 season, when the Cougars in red shut out the Cougars in blue, 4-0.
Houston (16-8, 2-2 Big 12)
- The Cougars host Lamar on Tuesday night before welcoming BYU to town.
- Houston leads the all-time series, 7-3.
- BYU took last season's series in Provo, 2-1, its first Big 12 series win in program history. The Cougars run-ruled UH in game one, 11-3, before Houston tied up the series in game two, 9-6. Game three went to extra innings, where BYU walked it off in the ninth on a grand slam for a 17-15 victory.
On Deck
The Cougars will return to the state of Utah next week for a midweek game at Utah Valley before hosting their first home games of the year in a three-game conference series against No. 11 Arizona.