In true rivalry fashion, final standings in the Mountain Western Conference come down to the outcome of the BYU-Utah baseball series.

Fighting for fifth place in conference standings, the two teams will square off three times in three days starting Thursday to finish off the regular season for both schools.

While pride and bragging rights are always on the line when these two squads meet, with how close these two teams are in the standings, winning becomes even more important.

"Any time you play Utah you want to win," BYU catcher J.T. Musso said. "You never want to lose to those guys. Especially with the record we have right now, [winning] would be a good building block going into the conference tournament."

Even though BYU has led Utah in the standings for most of the season, the Cougars' losing to SDSU and Utah's beating Air Force allowed the Utes to overtake BYU.

In game one of the series, BYU pitcher Jake Wortham (4-4) will match up against Utah's Stephen Fife.

"We know we can beat any team in our conference," Wortham said. "Pitchers have to throw strikes, hitters have to show up to hit, and we have to play a clean ballgame."

History is on the side of BYU as it holds a 209-90-1 overall advantage in the series.

The Cougars have not dropped a regular season series to Utah since 2002.

However, this season's momentum may be on the side of Utah, who goes into the series having won six games in a row. Also, the Utes beat the Cougars when the two teams squared off earlier this season.

BYU, on the other hand, has lost six of its last seven games and has not won a conference series since defeating UNLV two games to one the first week in April.

"This season has been such an up-and-down type of a season," said Blake Torgerson, who will take to the mound Friday. "We are trying to forget about the past and just build off of where we are right now."

All three games of the series will be played at Franklin Covey Field in Salt Lake City. Thursday's and Friday's games will start at 6 p.m., while opening pitch for Saturday's game is scheduled for 1 p.m.