Facing Santa Clara, No. 1 Stanford

Top-ranked Stanford is one of two opponents BYU plays as its baseball team returns to action early this coming week in California.

The Cougars, 1-7, play Santa Clara on Monday afternoon and are at No. 1 Stanford on Tuesday night. Santa Clara had a 2-1 record going into weekend action against UC Santa Barbara. Stanford had a 2-1 record going into the weekend with a three-game series at Florida State.

Sophomore Scott Koffman (0-2, 9.90) is scheduled to start on the mound against Santa Clara. Senior southpaw Jeff Stone (0-1, 7.16) is scheduled to start at Stanford. Ryan Adams (0-1, 6.39) is scheduled to begin the three-game series at the University of Pacific on Thursday.

"Our schedule is not going to get easier," said BYU Coach Vance Law. "We're playing quality teams. We have to be ready to play and not be intimidated."

The Cougars suffered setbacks in several games this season, losing the last four in a row.

"We beat ourselves in most of our games this year," said Law. "It is frustrating when we look at the talent-level we have on our team. It has taken a bigger adjustment to outdoors than I had expected. We are walking too many batters and striking out too many times ourselves."

Among the bright spots for the Cougars continues to be the play of pre season All-American Matt Carson. Carson, who extended his hitting streak to a team-leading eight consecutive games, is atop the Cougar batting averages at .433.

The Cougars made the first of three trips to California over a week ago when they gained their first victory of the season in a 14-inning win to start a three-game series at UC Irvine. The Cougars return home from California after the Pacific series and will fly to Hawaii during the Olympic break.

Fans can read the livestats of the BYU Santa Clara game at either santaclarabroncos.fansonly.com/sports/m-basebl/sched/sacl-m-basebl-sched.html on the Internet and can listen to the audiostream live of the BYU-Stanford game at gostanford.fansonly.com/sports/m-basebl/sched/stan-m-basebl-sched.html. For more detailed information, please click on the PDF link in the upper right-hand corner of this page.