Anderson named Rawlings WCC Player of Week heading into Utah game

PROVO, Utah (May 16, 2016)—Brennon Anderson has been named the Rawlings West Coast Conference Player of the Week as BYU baseball begins its final week of the regular season.

The Cougar sophomore raised his batting average from .319 to .341 in the four games last week, batting .538 with a slugging percentage of 1.000. He hit a pair of two-run homers in the San Francisco series, including the game-winning RBI in BYU's 12-6 victory.

Anderson’s kudos come on the heels of BYU achieving another team goal prior to Tuesday’s game at Utah and a three-game home stand against Santa Clara starting Thursday.

“This is a big week for us,” BYU Coach Mike Littlewood said. “Utah is a big game for our RPI (ratings performance index). We have to maintain our RPI, finish the league strong and get our pitching worked out before we go into next week’s tournament.”

The Cougars bring a 34-14 overall record into the week with a 15-9 league mark, but need one more league win to secure a berth in the WCC tourney at Stockton, California next week.

“Our initial goal was to get off to a good start non-conference (19-5), build an RPI, make the WCC tournament and make a regional. We’ve checked off one of those goals, but we are not quite done.”

Cougar freshman Easton Walker (1-0, 3.45) will start at Utah in Tuesday’s game televised live at 7 p.m., by the Pac-12 Network.

Michael Rucker (10-0, 2.63) and Riley Gates (0-1, 6.75) will start on the mound for BYU in Thursday and Friday’s games against Santa Clara. Saturday’s Cougar starter is yet to be announced.

All of the Santa Clara games will start at 6 p.m. MDT, with Thursday and Friday’s contests televised live by BYUtv. Saturday evening’s game marks a first in Provo, being televised live by ESPNU.