Some great Aggie teams when Descalso played at Davis.

Yeah, the basketball and football teams were pretty good during Descalso's time. Unfortunately he was on the baseball team, which had losing records all 3 years he was at UCD.

To be fair UCD was just at the beginning of the transition to D- I, so some losing seasons were to be expected. The 2005 team played that first D- I schedule, and they had to do it without several big offensive contributors from the 2004 team that basically decimated the CCAA (including 4 game sweeps against Chico State, Sonoma State, and Cal State LA). Descalso was very good, but he couldn't replace Robby Tulk and Ryan Coultas' offense by himself, for example. It's relative to context though- we don't know what Tulk and Coultas would've done against a full schedule of D- I teams. However they both were drafted, so it's fair to assume they both would've been able to at least hold their own at that level. Ironically, Coultas only pitched in a couple of games (mostly a shortstop) for the Aggies, but he ended his professional playing career as a starting pitcher for the Mets' AA team in Binghamton.

Descalso's sophomore season (2006) was a mess for the team because they had so many injuries to the pitching staff. They had 1 pitcher who barely got any work at the JC the year before, and he was pressed into the weekend rotation as a result of the injuries. Tyler La Torre had to move from catcher to the mound, and he was good. Interestingly, La Torre is now Sac State's pitching coach. Phil Rasmussen came over from the basketball team and gave them some quality innings, even locking down a save. I saw Rasmussen pitch once in person. He really looked like he knew what he was doing, but he'only pitch to a couple of hitters each time. If he'd devoted his collegiate career to baseball instead I think he would've been really good. The team actually looked really good the first couple weeks before all the pitchers started dropping like flies. They beat Oregon State, the eventual national champion.

The 2007 season (after which Descalso signed with the St. Louis Cardinals) was a big improvement. They added a couple of JC starting pitchers- Trevor Fox and Jeff Reekers- who gave them some much needed pitching depth, and the offense improved. Unfortunately they had kind of a brutal non- conference schedule that ruined their record. There was that game against Northridge in which he had two homeruns, 7RBI, and three errors at third base. The Aggies neded every bit of that offense and more to beat the Matadors that day.