For the second consecutive week, the No. 6 Arizona baseball team faces a struggling opponent on the road in Pacific 10 Conference play.
The Wildcats (21-10, 5-1 Pac-10) play a three-game set at Washington State (16-17, 0-6) this weekend at Bailey-Brayton Field in Pullman, Wash., after sweeping UCLA, who has a school-record 14-game losing streak.
The Cougars enter the series having been swept in their first two conference series by the Bay Area schools - at California and hosting No. 10 Stanford.
Arizona hopes to send WSU to a third-straight conference series sweep today at 6 p.m., tomorrow at 3 p.m. and Sunday at noon.
Wildcats head coach Andy Lopez said he warned his team about taking any squad lightly in the competitive Pac-10.
"We always talk about the respect that you have to give your opponent," he said. "I think it's true throughout college baseball, especially in the Pac-10. If you don't respect an opponent, it'll bite you. The one that's mentally tougher usually comes out on top."
Junior center fielder Chris Frey, whose .403 batting average ranks fourth in the conference, said anything can happen on the road, especially in the tough weather conditions known to Pullman.
"With any Pac-10 series you're up. It doesn't matter, Pac-10's Pac-10," he said. "I think it's real big if we can get out to a quick start early and maybe get them down a little bit on themselves."
Junior ace John Meloan (5-0, 3.78 ERA) gets the first chance to put WSU in a hole Friday evening.
Fresh off a one-hit complete game shutout and subsequent Pac-10 Pitcher of the Week honors, junior Kevin Guyette (5-2, 3.41) starts tomorrow.
Lopez's "Cou-Berger" combination of freshmen lefties David Coulon (2-1, 5.83) and Eric Berger (3-0, 4.85) pitches in the finale, with Coulon starting and Berger finishing.
On top of Berger's impressive outing in Sunday's 12-2 win at UCLA, with 5 2/3 no-hit innings in relief of Coulon, his season numbers suggest he's better suited for the bullpen.
In 10 relief appearances he's 3-0 with a 1.31 ERA, but 0-0 with a whopping 13.00 ERA in three starts.
The Wildcat staff faces a Cougar offense averaging 7.25 runs per game.
Catcher Brady Everett (.336, eight home runs, 39 RBIs), who snapped his 18-game hit streak in Tuesday's 7-3 win at Gonzaga, and infielder Jim Murphy (.393, six home runs, 18 RBIs) lead the offensive attack.
Arizona's offense, which leads the conference in batting average and runs, faces a WSU pitching staff last in the conference with a 5.74 ERA.
Poor pitching contributed to the Cougars' seven-game losing streak that ended with the win at Gonzaga.
Lopez warned that these tough times might not last for his opposition.
"They'll only be struggling before the series, and at the end of the series you'll find out if they're still struggling," he said. "I don't look at it as we're playing a lesser opponent. I look at it as we have three more games this weekend in Pac-10 play. Let's go do what we hope we can do and go get two out of three, and if we can get the third, we'll take it."
Arizona had not swept a Pac-10 road series since taking three from WSU April 17-18, 1999, and had not swept a conference series since May 18-20, 2001, against Washington.
With the momentum of last weekend's sweep and an opponent winless in two weekends of conference play, Coulon said the team definitely looks to get into a winning habit.
"You always want to go out there and get sweeps," he said. "Sweeps are big in the Pac-10, getting away from other teams (winning) two out of three, so every time you sweep a team it's really important for the program."