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With spring break giving the Bruins a week without midweek action, UCLA Baseball is back in action this afternoon with the first road trip of the conference season. The trip to Salt Lake City also serves as the team's first real experience with the newly expanded Pac-12 Conference - with Colorado not currently fielding a Baseball team, this series with Utah will be the only opportunity to welcome the newcomers.
UCLA enters the weekend tied for 1st place in the Pac-12 with a 4-2 record in conference play, and ranked 6th in the nation with a 17-5 overall record. Last weekend, the Bruins took 2 out of 3 games to win the series against Washington State - the second straight series win at JRS in opening Pac-12 play. Utah is tied for 6th in the Pac-12 with a 3-3 conference record, but is just 6-17 overall. Adam Plutko will take the mound for UCLA, coming off of a win last Friday night against Wazzu (6ip, 2er, 10k's) while Utah will use Joe Pond, a Junior righthander who strikes a lot of guys out, but as Ryan noted in his series preview, allows plenty of batters to reach base.
UCLA radio is not making the trip to Utah, but the Utes do offer a free online radio feed. You can also get the game updates, notes, observations and all the other goodies from Ryan's UCLA baseball twitter. This is your Utah series opener open thread so share updates as well as your thoughts and reactions here.