Five Games in Five Days at Oklahoma

PROVO -- After a 1-1-1 series split against San Jose State, BYU heads to Oklahoma to play five games in as many days.

The Cougars (2-2-1) will first travel to Stillwater, Okla., for a two-game stint with No. 27 Oklahoma State (7-4) Tuesday and Wednesday before moving on to Tulsa for a three-game series against Oral Roberts (5-3). Game time for the Tuesday game will be 7 p.m. (CST). Wednesday will be a 4 p.m. start. Against Oral Roberts, game times for the games Thursday, Friday and Saturday will be 3 p.m., 3 p.m. and 2 p.m. (CST), respectively.

Freshman Blake Torgerson (0-0, 10.80 ERA) and junior college transfer Mitch Woolf (0-0, 0.00) will make their first career division one starts against Oklahoma State. BYU will use the same rotation as it has the past two weekends of Dave Horlacher (1-0, 2.70), Patrick Wells (1-1, 5.23) and Brandon Christiansen (0-0, 2.70) in the respective Oral Roberts' games Thursday through Saturday.

The Cougars are coming off a series in which they won convincingly once, lost on a 10th-inning error and tied so they could catch a plane. BYU head coach Vance Law is pleased with the way his team is playing.

"We had a chance to win all three of those games [against San Jose State]," Law said.

Law believes the Oklahoma trip will be a good early season test for the Cougars' pitching staff.

"It will be a good challenge," Law said about the Oklahoma trip. "I believe that we have more depth in our pitching staff this year than in the past."

Lefty Lance Beus and team co-captain pitcher Michel Bergeron, who are both recovering from injuries, will make the trip with the team to add a few extra arms to the bullpen. Beus, a senior from Meridian, Idaho, played fall baseball for Oklahoma State before transferring to BYU for the winter semester of 2004.

Upon returning from Oklahoma, the Cougars will play host to Utah Valley State College on Tuesday, March 8 at 3 p.m., in their first home game of the season.

The Oklahoma State games and the first two Oral Roberts games will have a live audio feed on the Internet. 

Also, Oklahoma State offers a paid Internet video feed of the games. The cost is $9.95.

A multi-page release can be found by downloading the PDF file at the top of this story, which gives a detailed analysis of the Cougars.