Utes Battle No. 3 Bruins This Weekend

Thursday, March 29

Salt Lake City, Utah

6:00 PM

University of Utah

UCLA

3/27/2018 2:40 PM | Softball

2018 Utah Softball Game Notes

Series starts with Throwback Thursday contest at 6 p.m.

Utah vs No. 3 UCLA
Thursday, March 29	Utah vs No. 3 UCLA \| 6 p.m. MT
Friday, March 30	Utah vs No. 3 UCLA \| 6 p.m. MT
Saturday, March 31	Utah vs No. 3 UCLA \| 1 p.m. MT
LOCATION	Salt Lake City \| Dumke Family Softball Stadium
TV / LIVE STREAM	Pac-12 Network
LIVE STATS	UtahUtes.com
GAME INFORMATION	Complete Game Notes

ON DECK
Utah welcomes No. 3 UCLA for a three-game series this weekend.

UTAH NOTES
- Utah is currently No. 41 in the latest RPI and its strength of schedule is 19th in the country

- Alyssa Barrera was named to the USA Softball Player of the Year "Watch List", one of nine sophomores on the 50-person list

- Katie Donovan is the active Pac-12 leader in career, strikeouts, saves, starts, innings and appearances and ranks second in wins

- Donovan is seventh in the Pac-12 with 106 strikeouts in 17 starts

- After not having a pitcher toss 10 strikeouts in a game over the last six seasons, both Katie Donovan and Miranda Viramontes did it at the Maryland Invitational

- Viramontes is fifth in the nation with four saves to her credit

- Heather Bowen is batting .367 and is third in the nation with 14 doubles. As a team, Utah is second in doubles per game (1.89)

- At the Mary Nutter Classic this season, head coach Amy Hogue won her 300th game at Utah and 500th game of her career.

DONOVAN CLIMBING CAREER CHARTS
Katie Donovan now has 64 wins for her career, matching Michele Townsend for fourth place in Utah history. She needs five more W's to catch Janet Womack in the record book.

The senior also needs 65 more strikeouts to catch Kristen Arbogast for second place in Utah history. Donovan also recently moved past Ali Andrus for third place in total appearances by a Ute hurler.

STANFORD RECAP
Hailey Hilburn, who hit .625, scored six runs and drove in five, paced the offense. BreOnna Castaneda also had a solid weekend with six runs batted in and a .500 average.

Hilburn also picked up the win in the second game on Saturday with five innings of relief. She did not allow a base runner over the final three frames. Miranda Viramontes started to look like she had regained her form by shutting down Stanford in the Monday finale.

The Utes got the key hits last weekend with runners in scoring position, batting .430, while Stanford hit .207. Leadoff hitters were also exceptional with a .530 batting average against the Cardinal.

UTAH VS. UCLA REWIND
Utah won its first games ever in Los Angeles last season in impressive fashion, sweeping the No. 10 Bruins.

The Utes held on in the opener behind Miranda Viramontes' complete game victory and then Hannah Flippen's grand slam blew the second game open. Viramontes and Donovan combined to shut out the Bruins in the finale on four hits.

Ally Dickman hit .429 in the series and Alyssa Barrera batted .364 with four runs scored but the story was the pitching. Viramontes won a pair of games, allowing just one run in 11 innings. Donovan captured the other, allowing just two runs in 10 frames.

The Utes were swept the three previous seasons by UCLA before last year's role reversal. Utah could not get a win the last time the Bruins visited SLC in 2016 but won the first series here in 2013.