The Cougar baseball team opened its season with a three-game series against UC Riverside over the weekend, in which the Cougars weren’t able to come out with a single victory.

BYU (0-3) first played a doubleheader on Friday. UC Riverside (3-0) was able to outperform the Cougars in both games, winning 12-11 and 6-4, respectively.

In Game 1, catcher Bryce Ayoso led the team in runs with three, while second baseman Andrew Law and outfielder Ryan Bernal both lead the team with three hits each.

After the Cougars took a 2-0 lead, the Highlanders produced six unanswered runs in the fifth inning that put them in the lead, and ultimately winning them the game.

In Game 2, shortstop/pitcher Austin Hall produced two runs and two hits, while also contributing two hits.

The game started off slowly for the Cougars. It wasn’t until the fourth inning that they were able to get a runner on base. BYU finally had its first hit of the game by Ayoso in the fifth inning, but the inning ended before the Cougars could score any runs.

BYU finally put some runs up on the scoreboard in the sixth inning. Hall hit a single and then advanced to second following a Highlander throwing error. Hall then advanced to third on outfielder Stephen Wells’ hit and finally arrived at home after a sacrifice fly by outfielder Sean McNaughton. Law and Wells also scored that inning, but it wasn’t enough to overcome the deficit as the Cougars lost the game 6-4.

The Cougars fell short to UC Riverside 11-6 on the final game of the series on Saturday. The only lead the Cougars held was in the third inning when Hall scored off of Bernal’s single. UC Riverside hit three home runs against the BYU pitching staff.

The Cougars head back to California to take on UC Davis on Thursday.