A poster previously mentioned new facilities but over half of the facilities he mentioned aren't Big West Sports so that isn't going to help us there. As for facilities as a whole, we need to take a long and honest look at them because even in the Big West they are substandard. Baseball is nice but not close to what other teams have, plus there is no real locker room, meeting space etc. Go look at Cal Poly's new addition or even the team facility down at UCSD who just moved to the conference. Soccer is nice, but again, no locker rooms. Softball, was just redone, and took us from the worst facility to probably 7th best. For basketball (M/W) and Volleyball the pavilion is a nice facility but really lacks character.

So, a quicker way to look at this is, the individual programs have lower budgets than many of their counterparts, have worse facilities and next to Hawaii have the second most travel required. Not exactly a recipe for success.

I mostly read the topics on here but this is a great topic to examine. While the department has a larger budget than the rest of the Big West it would be interesting to compare sport for sport and not athletic department wide. The biggest separator is likely facilities. Where would you rank the UC Davis facilities compared to others in the Conference. I've seen all the facilities in the Big West for baseball and softball as well as several of them in soccer, volleyball and basketball so I may not be able to rank them myself but from my experience many of the UC Davis facilities are no better than middle of the pack.

A quick scan of Fullerton vs UC Davis
Baseball: $392k (Fullerton) vs $201k (Davis)
Softball: $293k (Fullerton) vs $158k (Davis)
Volleyball: $123k (Fullerton) vs $125k (Davis)
MBB: $524k (Fullerton) vs $294k (Davis)
WBB: $292k (Fullerton) vs $279k (Davis)
MSOC: $107k (Fullerton) vs $132k (Davis)
WSOC: $99k (Fullerton) vs $152k (Davis)

Also, I assume that a lot of this is eaten up by travel budgets for Davis seeing as though they are the only Northern California School in the conference.

It really was a tough time to hit their first rough patch. Until this recent 4 game losing streak they hadn't even lost two games in a row all season. I honestly thought after winning game two of the Fullerton series that they would take the Sunday game but you could see them pressing.....add in the emotions of Senior day and it was a tough combo.

I honestly believe that the two Fullerton losses are what lead to the Sac State and first two losses to Long Beach. I have caught almost all their games this season and they just didn't look right in those games.......Then came the ESPN U game where other than one inning on defense they grinded it out and put more pressure on LBSU than they could handle coming up with clutch hits. Hawaii will be difficult, especially out on the island. The place is a band box.

Fullerton's lead going into tomorrow is 1 game. Tomorrow is very crucial. A win for the Ags and they are tied and hold the tie breaker. Game one looked like the ladies were nervous playing in that environment but game two was an absolute battle. A 2-1 game that had a lot of great defensive plays to keep it that way.

BIG series this weekend at La Rue Field. First place Cal State Fullerton comes to town......

Its an interesting conversation to have though considering last year at this time the program had never had a winning season in Division I

The Big West is tough. Fullerton, Hawaii and Long Beach treat softball a little differently that the other schools in the conference and the rest are trying to catch up.

Definitely hitters jitters but that is how this team has lost several of their games this year. They just didn’t hit. Kibby looks to have worked through her early season struggles in the circle to be a great #2 but the offense has just gone to sleep on occasion. Tough to nit pick at a team that is now 31-8 though. Just crazy to think about.

Currently 29-7 with 17 games left. The previous UC Davis record for wins in a season at the D-1 level was set just last year at 27.

Outside of one or two games this year they have played really well. Brooke's only loss was in a relief appearance in extra innings under the "international tie-breaker" rule.

Also, you would think that to beat a Pac-12 team you would have to play flawless, but the Aggies actually made 3 errors in that game yesterday (rare for them) and still out played the bears..

Brooke was named the NCAA Division I Pitcher of the Week by the NFCA (the softball coach’s association), College Sports Madness and by FastPitch News in addition to winning the Big West Pitcher of the Week award.
For the week she was:
3-0 0.00 ERA 3 hits allowed 26k 19 innings pitched and threw a perfect game against Sac St.

For the last few years at least they have worn both depending on what uniform they wear.

Additionally, the softball team looks to have adopted the UCD instead of the C with Gunrock inside of it that they wore previously. Personally, I love the "C""A" hats. I would love to see that department wide.

Dugouts are ground level but their old dugouts were chainlink fences with dirt floors. These appear huge in comparison.

Also, the team room building is down the right field line right next to the batting cages but it still isn't finished yet. There is a tractor that is fenced off and parked right in front of the building.

Here's a few pictures that they posted on their Twitter / Instagram

Go Ags!