The BYU baseball team is heading to Nick Denes Field in Bowling Green, Kentucky, to take on the Western Kentucky Hilltoppers in their season-opener.
The series will span four games, including a doubleheader Friday afternoon and then games in the early afternoon Saturday and Monday. All four games will be broadcast on BYU radio.
This is the opener for both squads, and the first meeting between the two programs in their long histories. This marks BYU’s earliest season opener since the 2015 season.
The Cougars are coming off a 28-27 record and a 10-20 record in Big 12 play. They finished 12th in the Big 12 standings, earning a spot in the Big 12 tournament where they upset fifth ranked Arizona State in a 2-0 victory at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas.
They lost in the second round to fourth ranked Arizona. This was their second year in the Big 12, faring better in Year 2 than their 7-23 record in Year 1.
BYU returns 22 total players on the roster, including seven of their eight starting position players and nine pitchers. Head coach Trent Pratt enters his fourth season as the Cougars’ head coach, with an 89-95 record overall. The Cougars were selected to finish 13th in the Big 12 preseason poll, ahead only of their rival, Utah.
The Hilltoppers are coming off the second-winningest season in program history, finishing last year with a 46-14 record and an 18-9 record in Conference USA play. They won their conference tournament as a No. 2 seed, earning their first C-USA championship in program history. This propelled them to their first trip to the College World Series in 16 years, where they were selected as the No. 3 seed in the Oxford, Mississippi regional and eliminated from play by the Ole Miss Rebels.
They return nine key contributors from their 2025 season, including fifth-year senior and preseason All-CUSA First Team honoree infielder Kyle Hayes. Head coach Mark Rardin is beginning his fourth season with the team, boasting a 115-62 record with the Toppers. They were selected to finish fifth in preseason CUSA polls following their 2025 conference championship.
Returning BYU stars, catcher Parker Goff and outfielder Bryker Hurdsman joined BYU SportsNation this week to talk about the upcoming series and the preparations for the season as a whole.
When asked about what excites him most about the road trip, Goff said, “I'm excited to just get on the road, hang out with the boys, win some baseball games.”
Goff will have more than enough opportunities to do just that, as the BYU “bat cats” start the year with 12 straight road games before their home opener against Cal Baptist University on March 5-7. Conference play opens up March 12-14 against the Cincinnati Bearcats at Miller Park in Provo.
When asked what the feeling was in the clubhouse before this weekend’s series, Hurdsman said, “I think we're all just excited to play somebody else. We spend a lot of time beating up on each other so we're excited to take it to somebody else.”
In response to building on the strong ending to last year’s season, Hurdsman shared that the team is dedicated to two goals for the 2026 season: being relentless and being disciplined.
“We've tried to set some expectations for ourselves as a team so we've talked a lot about [those] two things: being relentless and being very disciplined," he said. "As a team, that is kind of our goal … We think that if we can do that we’re going to be really, really good.”
When asked about how the team is responding to a disappointing preseason ranking, Hurdsman said, “It's easy to get caught up in maybe where we rank, but it's never the same towards the end of the season. … We're very hopeful that we're going to flip that pretty quick, just by sticking to our approach and our plan and just going out and executing.”
Goff had a more chip-on-the-shoulder response, saying, “You can definitely use it as motivation, and I think that's what we're doing. Going into practice, just using it to motivate us to get better everyday and prove people wrong.”
Opening the season against an NCAA tournament qualifier will certainly allow the Cougars an opportunity to set the tone for another year of improvement.