PROVO -- The BYU softball team (31-16, 8-7 MWC) will travel to play against UNLV (22-33, 4-12 MWC) on Thursday, May 6 at 5 p.m. and SDSU (34-19, 13-3 MWC) on Saturday, May 8 at 1 p.m. These will be the final conference games of the regular season in preparation for the Mountain West Conference Tournament hosted by Colorado State on May 13-15 in Fort Collins, Colo.

"We'll take these games one game at a time," BYU head coach Gordon Eakin said.

The Cougars are coming off a 3-1 record last weekend with two wins over conference opponent New Mexico 7-4, 4-0 and one win over CSU 4-3. The second game against CSU, BYU lost a close 1-0 battle.

"In order to have had the chance to win the conference championship we needed to sweep (against NM, CSU)," Eakin said. "It's a game of inches and we were just inches away."

Overall in the four games, four BYU batters hit .333 or better. Freshman Jennifer Whiteley led BYU hitting 6-13 (.462) scoring two runs and stealing a base. Last week's MWC Player of the Week Ianeta Le`i hit .455 (5-11) recording one double, a home run, scoring 1 run and driving in two RBI. Freshman Jodi Norton hit .444 (4-9) with two home runs, six RBI, two runs scored and stole a base. Paige Paramore also hit .333 (4-12) for the Cougars. For the pitching staff, Niki Andersen went 2-0 in 11.2 innings and Brooke Boyce went 1-1 in 15 innings including two complete games.

The Cougars are currently ranked No. 13 in the nation in batting average batting (3.09) and No. 14 in the nation in runs scored (5.47). The pitching staff is posting a 3.16 ERA. Five BYU batters are hitting .320 or better including Le`i (.376), Paramore (.366), Kate Walker (.347), Jodi Norton (.339) and Debbie Dodds (.320).

Le`i leads the team in hits (47), runs scored (32), slugging percentage (.680) and is tied with Norton for a team-high 11 doubles. Norton also leads the team in RBI with 35. Lauren Watson has a team-high four triples and Ashlyn Russell leads the team in home runs with 10.

For the pitching staff, Niki Andersen leads the team in innings pitched (136.0), strikeouts (109), and wins (16-6 record). Brooke Boyce posts a 2.40 ERA, a 12-7 record with 54 strikeouts in 124.0 innings pitched, while Ariel Capra posts a 5.26 ERA, a 3-3 record with 23 strikeouts in 53.0 innings pitched.

Conference             Overall
Team (Rk.)             W   L  T  Pct.   GB   W   L   T  Pct.
San Diego State...... 13   3  0  .813   --  34  19   0  .642
Colorado State....... 12   4  0  .750  1.0  36  13   0  .735
BYU..................  8   7  0  .533  4.5  31  16   0  .660
Utah.................  7   9  0  .438  6.0  19  28   0  .404
UNLV.................  4  12  0  .250  9.0  22  33   0  .400
New Mexico...........  3  12  0  .200  9.5  29  30   0  .492
As of May 3, 2004 at 11:20 a.m. MT