Deseret First Duel Set for Wednesday Night

Wednesday, April 18

Salt Lake City, Utah

6:00 PM

University of Utah

Brigham Young

4/17/2018 3:21 PM | Softball

2018 Utah Softball Game Notes

Utes and Cougars renew rivalry in SLC

Live Stream | Live Stats

ON DECK
Utah hosts BYU in the annual Deseret First Duel on Wednesday evening. The Utes and Cougars meet for the first time since playing in the NCAA Regionals last season.

UTAH NOTES
- Utah is currently No. 38 in the latest RPI and its strength of schedule is ranked 14th 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 ninth in the Pac-12 with 116 strikeouts and Viramontes is 15th in the nation with four saves to her credit

- 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

- Heather Bowen is batting .342 and is seventh in the nation with 16 doubles. As a team, Utah sits fifth in the nation in doubles per game (1.76).

- Bowen also sits seventh in the Pac-12 with 33 runs batted in and eighth in slugging percentage (.667)

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

THE DESERET FIRST DUEL
On Sept. 13, 2007, the University of Utah and Brigham Young University announced the formation of a rivalry series between the two schools. The series is named the Deseret First Duel after title sponsor Deseret First Credit Union.

The rivalry series involves the 11 sports in which the two universities meet in head-to-head competition during regular-season play. Multi-team events (including postseason tournaments) are not included in The Duel standings.

The Deseret First Duel uses a system that awards points to the winner of each head-to-head competition. Points won by each sport will count toward a school's overall total.

A team trophy is awarded to the winner of each sport - and at the conclusion of each school year - a granite traveling trophy will be awarded to the overall rivalry series champion.

The Utah-BYU rivalry is one of the oldest and strongest in the country. The Wall Street Journal rated the rivalry one of the best in college athletics.

Utah has already captured this season's title, giving it two in a row and five of the last six Duel trophies.

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 55 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.

WEBER STATE RECAP
Utah Softball earned a much-needed sweep of Weber State to start a stretch of six games in six days. The Utes held on to win a pitcher's duel in the opener, 2-1, before wailing on the Wildcats in the nightcap, 10-1.

Kelly Martinez, Heather Bowen and Alyssa Palacios were a combined 7-for-9 with six runs scored and six driven in for Utah while Hailey Hilburn pitched a complete game to earn the win in the second game.

The opener was a much tighter affair with Miranda Viramontes winning a pitching duel to get the Utes off on the right foot. The senior threw a complete game, striking out four and working out of a bunch of jams throughout the contest.

UTAH VS. BYU REWIND
BYU beat Utah, 4-3, in Provo during the 2017 regular season, the third-straight one-run game between the rivals as Libby Sugg homered twice to provide the only offense the Cougars would need.

The teams met again in SLC during the 2017 NCAA Regionals with Utah taking the opener, 3-2, on a walk-off single by Hailey Hilburn. Heather Bowen had tied the game in the seventh on a RBI double.

In the rubber match between the teams, Utah clobbered the Cougars, 14-0 to advance to the Super Regionals. Miranda Viramontes got the win with 5 1/3 innings of shutout pitching while Alyssa Barrera collected a pair of hits and scored three times.