A victory is guaranteed to lift the spirits of a pair of 0-3 baseball teams when BYU plays later this week at UC-Irvine.
The three-game series begins Thursday at the home of the Anteaters who resurrected their program after a 10-year hiatus due to California state budget cuts. Actually, UCI plays UCLA before the Cougars come to town.
BYU's pitching rotation remains the same with Jeff Stone (0-0, 5.40) scheduled to start Thursday evening's game at 7 p.m. PST. Fellow senior Ryan Adams (0-0, 1.50) is scheduled for Friday evening's game and sophomore Scott Koffman (0-1, 13.50) will start Saturday afternoon's game. All of the games will be audiocast live on www.baseball.uci.edu, by a California radio station.
"I'm very encouraged and not discouraged," said BYU Coach Vance Law. "We played reasonably well and had two of the games won. We're looking for our pitchers to stay ahead in the count. I'm pleased with the way we battled. We had a nice relay play on a ball in the gap. We are doing the right things, we just need to put them all together for a win. Doug Jackson had an outstanding series. Ryan Adams had a gutsy performance and pitched well."
Leading BYU's hitters are Jackson, Matt Carson and Dave Jensen. Jackson, BYU's lead-off batter, has the team-best batting average at .545. Carson's arm was impressive on at least three plays at Texas Tech and his bat is speaking to the tune of .500. Jensen became the team front-runner with a 10-game hitting streak and has produced three doubles and a home run for the total base lead.
Following the three-game series at UC-Irvine, the Cougars bus early next week to games at Cal-Santa Barbara and Cal-Poly SLO before returning home.
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