In an exciting end of week series, the San Diego State Aztecs defeated the BYU Cougars, winning two out of three games, 8-1 and 9-5, in Provo.

While showing promise at times, the Cougar sluggers were no match for the Aztec's deep pitching rotation as SDSU only allowed six runs in their two wins over BYU.

"They're a real good team simply because they have a really deep pitching staff," BYU coach Vance Law said.

In game one on Thursday, the Cougar bats were snuffed out by SDSU pitching ace Stephen Strasburg.

Through the first three innings, Strasburg only faced the minimum nine batters. He struck out an amazing 15 of the 30 batters he faced while pitching a complete game.

In all, from his 127 pitches thrown, Strasburg only allowed one run off two hits. He also only walked one player.

"He [Strasburg] could pitch right now in the major leagues," Law said. "In my opinion, he may be the best pitcher in the country right now."

In game two Friday night, BYU came out with a strong pitching game of their own. Pitcher Jake Wortham started strong, and didn't allow the Aztecs to score until the fourth inning.

To complement Wortham's pitching, the Cougar offense came out firing as well.

Sean McNaughton hit the very first pitch of the game from SDSU pitcher James McLaughlin, and went on to score off of a sacrifice grounder by Kent Walton.With that play, The Cougars took their first lead of the series and never looked back.

The BYU batters really started to get rolling in the second inning. Steve Parker led off the inning by connecting on the first pitch for a solo homerun.

That play by Parker seemed to be a wakeup call for the Cougars, and. BYU ended the inning with five runs off four hits.

The Aztecs looked to rally in the fourth, whenWortham allowed three of the first four batters on base, and then walked two of the next three.

With the bases loaded, the Cougars looked to be in trouble. However, Wortham calmly stepped up to the mound and threw two straight strikes. On the next pitch, SDSU's Cory Vaughn connected for a long fly out to right field, ending the inning.

The highlight was a two-run homer by McNaughton, his 13th of the season. From the moment the bat connected with the ball, there was no doubt he was going to score. To the delight of the fans, the ball soared over the center field fence and into the street.

"I thought we did a real good job against Mclaughlin," Law said. "I thought our attack was pretty well executed today and we did our situation hitting very, very well. Probably the biggest zero of the game was in the error column."

The Cougars went on to with the game 10-4. Eight of the nine batters for the Cougars connected for a hit in the game, all scoring runs.

BYU looked to start the third game of the series the same way they ended game two.

While leading off the scoring in the first inning on a run by Dan Vargas, the Cougars just weren't able to muster enough runs to down the Aztecs.

It seemed as if the Cougars were in control for the first two innings, when pitcher Blake Torgerson retired the first six Aztec hitters, but after that it was all San Diego State.

The Aztecs came out swinging in the third inning, scoring five runs off four hits, and it was all over.

With the loss, the Cougars fall to 20-33 on the season, and 8-13 in conference play. SDSU improved their record to 30-22, 16-8 MWC.

Also, the Cougars loss enabled the University of Utah to pass them in the standing. The Cougars' final regular season series will be at Utah Thursday.

The Cougars close out their home schedule having lost their last five series at home.