I don't know if Title IX is so specific as to state that you must do exactly the same thing for both sports, but rather give equal opportunities for facility improvements and competition.

Baseball has had a superior facility to softball for many years, but that was largely due to all the volunteer efforts and donated material, not so much an issue of money. Softball doesn't need a 3,500 stadium, and neither does the baseball team, but no doubt they built Community Stadium with higher aspirations in mind, like perhaps a minor league team (like Nettleton Stadium in Chico). Who received the more recent and extensive improvements though ? Softball. New seating, new batting cages, and didn't they get a new playing surface too ? That isn't to say baseball got nothing-the lighted batting cages are relatively new.

What I suppose this illustrates is that Title IX compliance is not as simple as solving an algebraic equation (doing to one side to what you do to the other).

I have a feeling this won't happen until the team performs + generates more spectator interest. Sac State didn't get their lights until after they had asustained winning reputation under Christiansen. I don't think their softball stadium has lights. I could be wrong.

If I recall, Coach Swimley laid out the plans to include the nearby soccer field. That facility, which benefits both soccer programs, was spearheaded by Coach Will Lotter? Did any female coach / leader put hundreds of hours into those efforts?

Women's athletics also got a new field hockey facility.

I may be wrong, but I think the field hockey facility was almost entirely built with donated funds from a very wealthy parent of a player. This was at the time when field hockey was being threatened with elimination as a sport on the west coast. Maybe we just need another wealthy doner to get this done. But I do agree, it would be great to see the team succeed and earn the money.

Aggies lost 6-3 to CSUN in 11 innings

They fought like hell though all game long, so nothing to be ashamed of here.

Alejandro Huezo made his first career start and was pretty sharp-2 runs allowed in 5 innings. Nate Freeman had a shutdown long relief appearance and kept them in the game. Nice to see Freeman recover from some rough outings as a starter

Alex Gouveia hit a game-tying homerun in the 7th. What made that particularly interesting was that it was his second collegiate homerun-ANYWHERE. According to the CCCAAsports.org website he hit .311 over two seasons at Modesto JC-with ZERO homeruns in over 228 official at-bats. He has two with the Aggies.

Unfortunately they surrendered 4 runs in the 11th. However, the Aggies loaded the bases with two outs and had the tying run at the plate. All they wound up getting was a bases-loaded walk to get their third run.

A statitical oddity: Jack Gallagher finally got a single. All of his other hits had been for extrs bases.

The hitters struggled again, but there's a pattern developing: the team flat out struggles to hit in series openers. That is when typically the opposing team's best pitcher would be throwing. If you expect to struggle against anyone it would be the Friday starter. Here's how they've done so far in series openers:

Utah Valley (loss)-1 run.
Santa Clars (loss)-2 runs
Seattle (loss)-1 run
Arizona State (loss)-1 run
CSU Northridge (loss)-3 runs

8 runs over 5 games is not getting it done. Still it does mean the Aggies are 5-4 in games that are not weekend series openers.

The Aggies split the Saturday doubleheader with Northridge 6-5 and 3-9.

I was surprised that Nicholson started exactly the same lineup, except for the pitchers, in both games. I thought for sure he'd have Gallagher get a rest from catching the second game, but he started both of them. I see why. He has an accurate arm and nailed at least 3 or 4 would-be base stealers on the day and his batting average is starting to creep up.

The second game was winnable. The Northridge pitcher was more lucky than good, as rallies (including a bases-loaded none out situation) kept getting thwarted by sharp line drives hit directly at infielders. It actually was a very competitive game until Carter Delaney had to exit the game after pitching 5 scoreless innings of relief. With two shutdown long relief appearances in a row (the other being a 3 inning appearance against ASU) would not be surprised if he gets some weekend starts.

Saw Barnes pitch for the first time. Seems like he has kind of a hitch in his delivery and he kept missing high. I wonder if perhaps he has to modify his delivery to avoid aggravating an injury-he didn't look comfortable out there.

Wooldridge was also impressive in relief.

How are the Aggies offensively? Is the lineup more power centralized, are they playing small ball and stealing bags, or is it a mixed bag?

They definitely have more power than last year. Jack Gallagher has five homeruns already, which would have tied him for the team lead last year. They're getting power from many different sources too. Alex Gouveia has hit two and he had none in two years at Modesto JC.

I didn't see much small ball or aggressive baserunning when I went, but that's a very small sample.

One thing they are much better at is fielding, You can probably chalk that up to having a head coach with a proven track record of playing and coaching infield. The infield coach they had before-Lloyd Acosta-had a very limited resume. He had never played above JC (and legend has it tried out for UCD in the D-II years and didn't make the team). I know playing experience doesn't necessarily equal coaching aptitude, but it helps. The hazing report if I remember it correctly said the players kind of gave him an average to below average rating.

Pitching is stronger too, but the improvement is mainly in individual relief performances, so it hasn't translated into many wins so far. For example, today freshmen Max Hippensteel and Zach Romero threw scoreless innings today, but the team surrendered 11 runs over the other seven innings.

And so far this team has just been flat on Fridays, have not won a series opener.

Another thing I like is that he plays everyone. The only player who hasn't appeared in a game yet is pitcher Shotaro Hamada. In Hamada's case I think they might be redshirting him. Assuming this is the right guy Maxpreps.com says he has a career high school varsity career record of (4-12) with a 6.86 ERA. I'm going to guess this guy has a billion dollar arm but needs some work on his control, which would be supported by his K:BB ratio. Or maybe they're just waiting for a low-pressure scenario to give him his first appearance.

Aggies lose 6-4. This one was actually pretty exciting. Green was dealing for the first 5 innings but it seemed like after he fell down trying to field an infield hit in the 6th it was kind of a gut punch and it went quickly downhill from there. I think they pulled him too early though, as he was the Aggies' best hope of getting out of the inning with minimal damage. Hogan is very talented but he's also a fairly inexperienced pitcher (don't think he's pitched in any of his prior college seasons) going up against a strong Fullerton team. Better I think to let Hogan start the 7th if possible.

Umpire rant deleted

The Aggies defeated Loyola Marymount 10-3 today. Seven wins-1 more than last year. More to follow.

Improvement! LMU was 11-10 coming into the game with the Ags including a win over Oklahoma State and Vanderbilt.

Making it more impressive was that they gave LMU a beatdown while starting 4 freshmen and essentially going with a bullpen game.

They had Wooldridge at first and Leehey at third, which is something we may see more often, maybe not all the time. Until the league has the book on him they're looking to get his bat in the lineup as much as possible; however, limiting to the outfield creates somewhat somewhat of a logjam. Stone plays left field everyday and Wolbert plays everyday, so if Wooldridge plays right it means Wolbert has to play center. This seriously limits the playing time for Kang and Helfrick who are likely big parts of the future.

I'm honestly not sure what to think of Wolbert in center field. The last game I attended he made a great diving play but also turned a single into a triple. Jury's still out.

Wooldridge is an interesting player. Since two-way players for UCD generally do not wind up excelling at hitting and pitching (Scott Lyman and David Popkins being the only exceptions I can think of) he'll probably settle into one or the other by the end of next year.
Nathan Peng is kind of the cautionary tale . I think he would've been great at pitching or hitting but they never really played him enough in either role to excel.

Umpire rants welcome.

Surprised not to see a post or two on the first 2 games at Bako. 5-4 Friday night win, followed by a 14-7 comeback (down 7-1) on Saturday. Good for them!

Record of 9-14, 3-6 in conference.

Compared to last year's record of 6-35, a huge turnaround already.

2023 - 9 -14, .391
2022 - 6 -35, .146
2021 - 14-43, .246
2020 - - 9 - 7, .562*
2019 - 19-31, .380

Yeah, I was kind of asleep at the wheel there.

The interesting thing is UCD has gone from a team with very little hitting to one with hitting but not so strong starting pitching, which I think you can attribute to the increased competitiveness of the Big West. But right now it's the long relievers (Nate Freeman, Ian Torpey, etc) who are keeping them in the game long enough to come back.

Next is St Mary's I believe. Will be interesting to see how they'll play in front of no crowd...the Gaels are not selling tickets right now due to stadium construction.

If the Aggies beat the Gaels 6-4 and there were no spectators there to watch it did it actually happen ?

Yes.

Helfrick and Gallagher homered. Gouveia had two doubles. Zach Romero gave them three scoreless and efficient innings in his controlled start.

A statistical oddity: the Aggies used 8 pitchers and none of them recorded a strikeout.

Saw a clip of freshman catcher Ryan Lee throwing out a would-be basestealer on the Twitter site and got a glimpse of the new stadium at Guisto Field. Doesn't quite look like it will be finished until the very end of the season at the earliest. I saw a new metal grandstand with bleacher seating but it looked unfinished and I didn't see the press box they were talking about adding.

https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.polytechae.com%2FImages%2FSMC%2520Baseball%2FSMC%2520-%2520Baseball%2520-%2520Rend6.jpg&tbnid=P7P0GQsLXVKc8M&vet=1&imgrefurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.polytechae.com%2Fsmc.html&docid=e3SMAk6z3ztn_M&w=1433&h=750&itg=1&source=sh%2Fx%2Fim

In the clip I saw it looked almost nothing like the images. I read somewhere they had to scale back the project due to funding. It was supposed to have a capacity of 1,500 but now will be a little over 600.

that link shows a $12M price tag presumably set at the 2006 design date. that's seems like a lot of cash for the Gaels to come up with for baseball.

Yeah, that is a lot but on the other hand they don't have as many sports (most significantly no football). Their baseball program is a bigger deal. Two recent pitchers have made All-Star game appearances (Corbin Burnes and Tony Gonsolin) and 1 has won a Cy Young award (Burnes). Ken Waldichuk, a rookie with the A's, is also supposed to be a big deal.

And in another clip I did see the new pressbox.

UCSD is up next. Looks like they've taken a big step forward this yeat:17-9 and they swept both Bakersfield and Long Beach State.

Former Aggie Jalen Smith is hitting .310 with 17 RBI so far according to the UCSD baseball website, but I say-who cares ? He's a fifth year senior so there'd be something seriously wrong if he weren't hitting .310
Also, Smith was one of the deserters who fled during the hazing investigation so he's not a player I like very much.

The Aggies beat the hornets in 11 innings 4-3. That one feels good. They scored the winning run without the benefit of a hit.

Lots of clutch performances:

Alex Gouveia hit the game-winning sac fly.
Nate Freeman threw three scoreless innings.
Nathan Peng was unhittable for 2 innings. When he loaded the bases in the 11th Kaden Riccomini stranded all of them.

With the team down 3-1 in the eighth Mark Wolbert hit a homerun. In the same inning James Williams III doubled and came around on a sac fly. Riley Acosta doesn't play much, but he scored the winning run today.

From what I can see the last time UCD beat Sac State was on 4/4/2017 (7-6). I'm pretty sure I went to that game.

This was a well-placed win as it avoids a potential seven-game losing streak. The Aggies were swept by UCSD over the weekend. Their next opponent is UCLA and they are currently ranked #22.

Great win for the Aggies as they rebuild the program. A win over Sac in any sport is always a great win!

I checked out the box scores and to my dismay saw that the buckhorn in winters is a financial supporter of of sac state! For a business in Yolo county with all kinds of davis presence this really has to be a little hurtful. Still love their tri tip sandwich at the farmers market. But, hey, what is going on here.

I thought the Woodland location is no more? They have at least one in Sac

Just out of curiousity I took a look at Sac State's schedule. They are 17-16. Had they not scheduled an extra game against Menlo College that they won 10-5 they would be .500 right now. They seem to be a team that hits a lot of homeruns but since their best starter has been out of action their pitching hasn't been significantly better than the Aggies'. Of course I say this before UCD takes on UCLA (a team Sac State has also played), so that statement may prove false as the weekend progresses.

What I don't quite understand is why Menlo was able to outhit the hornets. They were 5-27 after that contest.

The Aggies played #19 UCLA tough but ended up losing 3-2 in a closely contested game.

The Ags dropped their second game at UCLA today 8-2.

UCD just upset the 19th ranked Bruins 6-3 !