Utah Utes campus briefs

BASEBALL: The Utes take a break from conference play to travel to Southern California to face USC in a three-game series this weekend. First game begins Friday at 7 p.m. MT.

USC (19-24) is coming off its first Pac-10 series win of the season, taking two-of-three from No. 19 Arizona. The Trojans play UC Irvine on Tuesday before facing the Utes during the weekend.

Utah struggled against No. 11 TCU last weekend, falling in all three games, 11-6, 11-4 and 8-2. The bright spot for the Utes was sophomore C.J. Cron, who hit .636 (7-for-11) over the three games with three homers, a double and seven RBI.

SOFTBALL: After playing nine consecutive games in the Salt Lake area, the University of Utah softball team will head west this week for three Mountain West Conference games at UNLV and San Diego State.

The Utes will face UNLV Thursday at 7 p.m. MT. Friday's game at San Diego State will begin at 7 p.m. MT, and Saturday's first pitch against the Aztecs is set for 1 p.m. PT. Utah won three of its five games last week and now stands 24-25 overall and are 4-7 in MWC, good for fifth place in the league standings.

Career Records Watch: Foster and Ashley Smuda (Scottsdale, Ariz.) are included in seven different categories in the Utah career record books.

Foster is listed in batting average (.337, .04 shy of No. 5), runs (145, 10 shy of No. 2), doubles (38, two shy of No. 5) and RBI (163, 12 shy of No. 1). Smuda is fourth in school history in appearances (116, 20 shy of No. 3) and strikeouts (417, 44 shy of No. 4). She is also close to entering the top five in wins (49, four shy of No. 5).

Designated Player Notebook: Joni Cook (Eagle, Idaho) is hitting .429 in the 11 games since she was inserted into the batting order during the first game at New Mexico. Cook has come up with 12 hits, including four doubles, in 28 at-bats and has driven in 11 RBI. She is second in the MWC with a .478 average in league games.