While most students will be anticipating dances and the football game this homecoming weekend, BYU’s softball team will be focused on two games — one Friday night and one Saturday afternoon.
The two opponents — College of Southern Idaho’s Golden Eagles, hailing from Twin Falls, Idaho, and Salt Lake Community College’s Bruins from Salt Lake City — are traveling south to the Provo area for the weekend to face not only BYU, but Utah Valley University, University of Utah and Snow College as well.
With a win over UVU on Tuesday, the BYU softball team’s newcomers and returners have now experienced an actual game together.
“This weekend is important because it’s another chance for our team to play and get to know each other better as players,” outfielder Delaney Willard said. “And it’s a chance for us to get more at-bats and our pitchers to get better as well. Anytime we are able to play a team other than ourselves is very important and exciting too.”
But even though the Cougars are 1-0 in the preseason, there’s still the daunting fact that CSI has now participated in 10 preseason games and SLCC has had four. The team and staff see the amount of games CSI and SLCC have already played as a slight advantage but nothing drastic.
As for the team’s focal points before the games, there’s a menu of options.
“We’ve got to work on every aspect of our game — our defense, our pitching, our hitting,” starting pitcher Tori Almond said. “We’ve got to work on everything before we come out again.”
Aside from the actual competition, the Cougars are also keeping an eye on this weekend’s weather report.
“We’re looking to see if the weather will rain us out or snow us out,” head coach Gordon Alvey said. “But we’ll practice and work on some things that manifested themselves [this past Tuesday]. We’re looking forward to [today].”
The Cougars will face the Golden Eagles today at 6 p.m. and the Bruins Saturday at 12:30 p.m.
