Aggie Baseball: The Honolulu Chronicles

UC Davis baseball just got back from a four-game series in Hawai'i and, despite going 1-3 against the Rainbow Warriors, the Aggies still had plenty of stories - and sunburns - to go around.

Back on the mainland, I could more or less guess how the scene was unfolding. Of course the skies were blue. Of course the temperature never wavered from 81 degrees. Of course the sands were white and the water was crystal clear.

But I got to see a little more than I thought I would thanks to two of the four games being featured on ESPN3.com. It may not be ESPN in the truest sense, but it's still pretty fun to see this as part of the worldwide leader in sports' family of channels:

So on Thursday night, I settled in for a night of Aggie baseball.

From the broadcast, I could tell that Les Murakami Stadium is pretty impressive and the team wholeheartedly agreed that it was a really great place to play. First baseman Eric Johnson told me that there is even a third level of seating that hangs over the field, causing an echo that makes the stadium sound even louder than it really is.

Also noticeable? When third baseman Paul Politi forgot to take his hat off during the national anthem... right as the camera panned over UC Davis lined up outside of its dugout. Oops. Luckily he remembered, slyly glanced from left to right to see if anyone else noticed, then slowly slipped his cap off as shortstop Adam Young smiled next to him.

If you saw Thursday's game or took a look at the box score or postgame recap, the highlight of the night was another stellar pitching performance from senior Dayne Quist. In seven innings, he struck out nine Hawai'i batters and gave up just four hits as the Aggies took the 5-3 win.

But it seemed the crowd, and then the cameramen, were much more interested in another situation that was unfolding. All of a sudden the camera was pointed on senior second baseman Ryan Allgrove as he was... shagging foul balls?

It's true. The camera and the broadcasters were transfixed on Allgrove as he jogged up and down the left field line collecting foul balls. He probably had a solid half inning of air time. They showed a graphic with his name, bio info and mugshot. And everytime he ran out, the home crowd heckled him with every step.

Well what could a foul ball shagger ever have done to get a crowd that riled up?

It seems as if our own Mr. Allgrove is a bit of an instigator, I'm afraid. The story goes like this:

There were signs posted all over the Aggie dugout instructing the players to please return all foul balls. So that's exactly what Allgrove set out to do. At one point, one foul shot looked like it was going to hop over the fence and into the crowd, when, at the last second, Allgrove snatched it out of the air. The crowd clamored for the ball and Allgrove tossed... but completely faked the crowd out. The entire section half stood, hands in the air, waiting for the toss that never came, then laughed and applauded when they realized Allgrove had pulled one over on them.

The whole rest of the game they razzed him and the camera followed it, even as he took his cap off to give the crowd a salute as he sat back down after retrieving yet another foul ball.  Nice touch Ryan.

Allgrove wasn't the only Aggie to feel the heat of 2,500 Hawai'i baseball fans.  Turns out, every Aggie got their fair share of heckling after it was discovered that a 15-page "scouting report" was passed out to the fans to give them plenty of ammunition against our boys. Sisters' names, girlfriends' names, and who knows what else were all part of this packet of info and the fans used it all weekend long.

But the joke turned out to be on the Hawai'i fans in one instance.

UC Davis has a set of uniforms that features blue jerseys with gold numbering. If you've seen these at Dobbins Stadium, you probably know which ones I mean. And you probably remember them because the font that the numbers are written in is one of the most difficult fonts to read.

Evan Wolf in the dreaded blue jersey... Is that 36? 38? It could even be 39 maybe? 

Let's say we have a pinch hitter and the Aggies are in this particular set of uniforms.  The exchange from the press box at Dobbins Stadium generally goes like this:

Me: We have a pinch hitter on deck. That's... 19?
Someone in the press box: No that can't be 19. 19 is Johnson and he's on first. 16?
Me: No. 16 is Patrick Hennessey and he's a pitcher.
Someone else: Is it 18?
Me: Yes. Yes that's an 18. Ok so that's Spencer Brann pinch hitting. Good work everyone.

Well Eric Johnson experienced this exact confusion - for lack of a better term - as he stood at first base on Friday night.  Fans kept yelling "Spencer! Hey Spencer!" throughout much of the game. Obviously Eric didn't turn around. They kept yelling "Spencer! Spencer!" but got no response from Johnson.

Later on, it finally dawned on the Aggie senior: They thought he was wearing No. 18 and thus exhausted all of their heckling energy trying to rile up backup catcher Spencer Brann, not first baseman Eric Johnson.

I feel your pain, Hawai'i fans. I really really do.

All in all, a couple more wins could have really made the trip one to remember, but it's back home to Davis and on to the next one. And for a few more days they'll have the stories... and the sunburns... to remember the trip by.


Assistant director Amanda Piechowski was lucky enough to travel with women's basketball to Honolulu in December, so she really didn't want to push her luck with a return trip with baseball. But it would have made waiting for the 9:35 p.m. Pacific first pitch - and writing the post game recap at the end of the three-hour game - a heck of a lot easier...

The Best Kept Secret Around

Scan the top 30 teams in Golfstat's Div. I women's rankings and you're likely to see schools more closely associated with the NCAA Final Four or a BCS bowl game. Alabama. Auburn. USC. North Carolina. Ohio State.

Look a little more closely and you'll see a couple of party crashers; two teams that don't come from the so-called "super conferences" but are still considered among the college golf's elite programs.

Say hello to one of them – No. 26 UC Davis.

Amidst programs with deep pockets and even their own campus golf courses, UC Davis sits among the country's best, every bit a part of the NCAA Championship contender conversation as the rest of them.

And it's not like the Aggies are showing up late for the dance. They're only in their seventh season as a program yet they've made a meteoric rise. Four Div. I seasons and already appearances at three NCAA finals and four regionals. Back-to-back Big West titles in 2010 and 2011. Rankings in and around the top 25 most of the past three seasons.

Under the radar on a local level but already a highly regarded (and feared) program nationally.

It didn't take long for the Aggies to announce their presence, doing so in 2008 - their first at Div. I - when they stunned perennial powers Ohio State and Stanford in a three-team playoff at the NCAA West Regional to earn the final berth to nationals.

UC Who? That was the collective cry that season, especially when the Aggies were reportedly the last team selected to the tournament field yet earned their way to the national finals. Former coach Kathy DeYoung initially built the program before retiring in 2008, giving way to current head coach Anne Walker who's taken the program to even higher achievements.

There was 2009 when UC Davis, ranked 27th, dominated No. 1 UCLA, No. 8 USC and No. 10 Cal to win the Turtle Bay Invitational in Hawaii by nine shots. If the Aggies were only slightly known before then, well, they let the cat out of the bag after that one. More tournament wins followed, keyed by former standouts Alice Kim and Chelsea Stelzmiller who were consistently honored on the All-Big West teams through their four years while also playing in the U.S. Women Open. Yes. THAT U.S. Women's Open.

But the Aggies' profile continues to grow. They checked in at No. 11 during the early parts of this season, winning two tournaments before evening taking fall quarter final exams. This spring has already provided a second, third and a tie for fifth place, the latter coming last weekend at the PING/Arizona State Invitational when they tied (No. 3 USC) or beat (No. 7 Vanderbilt, No. 8 LSU) three top-10 teams.

That was noteworthy enough but Demi Runas added another feather in the cap, tying for the individual title for her second career win.The ASU tournament is one of the oldest of its kind in the country and featured a slew of players more likely suited for an NCAA Championship than a regular-season event. 

PING/ASU Invitational co-medalists Demi Runas and Ani Gulugian (UCLA)

Watching UC Davis climb to the top of "Mt. Div. I Women's Golf" is a story in itself. Knowing that this year's team is doing it without a senior in the bunch might be even bigger. That's right. Five players in the starting lineup and two of them are freshmen (Blair Lewis, Beverly Vatananugulkit), another is a sophomore (Jessica Chulya) and two are juniors (Runas, Amy Simanton).

John Calipari would be proud.

It's a talented quintet. Runas is one of Golf World's top 50 college players to watch this season. A different player led the team at each of the five fall tournaments. Four of them have shot 68 or better in a round. Each of them has at least three top-20 finishes.

With no seniors in the lineup, it'd be easy to say the Aggies' future is bright. Well, the future is now.

******************

UP NEXT: THE PACIFIC INTERCOLLEGIATE

Speaking of women's golf, UC Davis hosts its lone "home" event of the year with the Pacific Coast Intercollegiate on Apr. 16-17 at The Ocean Course in Half Moon Bay. Golf is a scenic sport at just about any location, let alone sticking it up against the Pacific Ocean with the Ritz Carlton next door. 

  The Ritz-Carlton at Half Moon Bay and The Ocean Course. (kiwicollection.com)

So what's up with a home event that's not really at home? Welcome to college golf where Wyoming's men's team can hold a tournament in Arizona and Ohio State's women's team can host one in Rancho Palos Verdes in Southern California. Heck, the Aggie men's squad even goes south to co-host The Prestige at PGA WEST in La Quinta which in the past decade has evolved into a premier event on college golf's schedule.

The women will co-host this second annual event with Oregon and bring in a field that was rated by Golf Digest as one of the toughest of the spring. No. 1 UCLA, No.3 USC, No. 11 Oklahoma State, No. 14 Cal, No. 19 Arizona and No. 23 Washington are other top 30 teams besides the Aggies and No. 22 Oregon that'll compete.

My job? I'll be there overseeing scoring. No, I'm not playing. You don't want to see that. But if you follow the tournament online, I'll be making sure scores are updated throughout each day so folks can see players' scorecards as they make their way around the course, watch teams rise and fall in the standings, and see which players are in contention for medalist honors.

Yeah, it's cool from that standpoint. As one of the people responsible for making it happen, it can be a pain-in-the-you-know what.

Basically, the tournament stations volunteers near the putting greens of every third hole on the course and when the players come through they give the volunteers their scores from their last three holes. With the help of Mr. Walkie-Talkie, the volunteer then calls in the scores to me and I put them into a scoring system and the tournament's online scoreboard is updated instaneously.

Typical Golfstat leaderboard

That's how it's supposed to happen. But not always.

Golf courses are big places with hills and trees - in other words, obstacles to radio signals. Optimally, I'd be sitting behind my computer in the clubhouse sipping a Diet Coke while I took down scores. Last year, not so much. Turns out the only place we could pick up radio calls from every volunteer location was, and I'm serious, on a bush near the valet stand.

Five feet to the left was a dead spot. Two feet to the right was a no-go. A foot in front of me was a flower bed and I'm not too sure the groundskeepers would take to kindly to that. Six feet behind me was the driveway. 'Nuff said there. But the hedge, it was almost perfect.

Golfers played back-to-back to rounds on the first day so the Oregon SID and myself would take turns standing by the bush writing down scores which we'd then walk down to a portable table and input into the computer.

How'd we find that one "live" spot? Ever see that Verizon commercial? Yeah, well, a lot of "Can you hear me now?" took place between the volunteers and us before the day started.

The scoring software provides each playing group a number, places them at certain hole to start their rounds and then gives me all the necessary paperwork to help the volunteers and I do our job.

Typically, an exchange between the volunteers and us goes like this:

VOLUNTEER: "Hole 15"

ME: "Hole 15, go ahead"

VOLUNTEER: "Hole 15, group 12. Runas 2-2-2. Johnson 2-3-2. Smith 2-2-2."

ME: "OK, Hole 15, group 12. Runas 2-2-2. Johnson 2-3-2. Smith 2-2-2."

VOLUNTEER: "That's correct."

ME: "Thank you!"

That's the way it's supposed to go. Sometimes it's like this.

VOLUNTEER: "Hole.... (static)"

ME: "Go again please?"

VOLUNTEER: "Hole.... (static) teen."

ME: "Hold on, let me move.... OK, go ahead."

VOLUNTEER: "(static)... 15."

ME: "OK Hole 15, go ahead."

VOLUNTEER: "Hole 15, group (static).... Runas 2-2-2... (static) 2-3, Smith 2-2-2.

ME: "OK, can you repeat Johnson's scores?"

VOLUNTEER: "(static) 2-3."

ME: "What her first score?"

VOLUNTEER: "2"

ME: ""OK, Hole 15, group 12. Runas 2-2-2. Johnson 2-3-2. Smith 2-2-2."

VOLUNTEER: "That's correct."

ME: "Thank you!"

Luckily, the paperwork tells me who should be at the 15th hole at any given time so if I have the names, I can usually figure out the group.

And that's just one exchange. Over the course of a 36-hole day, we'll have about 300 of those conversations and there are no breaks. At the end of each round, each playing card is checked by an official and we then double-check them against what we inputted because, let's face it, it's easy to see above how mistakes can be made.

The volunteers, usually course members or local residents, are great people and very, very patient with me. Working a golf tournament is different but that's what makes it enjoyable overall. That and having the Pacific Ocean right next door.

Wanna follow live scoring at the Pacific Coast Intercollegiate? Just go here. (the link will be live closer to tournament time).


Mike Robles is Assistant Athletics Director and will be on site at Half Moon Bay for the Pacific Coast Intercollegiate in two weeks. While he's worked many golf tournaments, he has yet to actually see much of any course but knows every clubhouse inside and out. He'll also go to bed for the two weeks after the tournament with the sequence "2-2-2, 2-3-2, 2-2-2" repeating in his head.

The Thrill Of (Watching) Victory

The old saying is that a picture is worth a thousand words.

I'm not sure who gets credit for that: Wikipedia gives the nod to the ancient Chinese, although I tend to believe it was a paparazzi artist beefing up his resume years ago. In my case, however, it was the lack of pictures that led to a volume of words. A thousand? No. But certainly more than I'm used to. The weather that hit the valley on Saturday prevented me from taking photos, which in turn allowed me to write a more detailed account than normal.

See for yourself. This story, submitted from a corner table at the Starbuck's on March Lane in Stockton, is considerably longer than my usual game recap:
http://www.ucdavisaggies.com/sports/w-wpolo/recaps/033112aaa.html

First of all, it helps that the game was exciting. Pacific scored three straight in the third then UC Davis followed suit in the fourth. The two teams played to four ties. Finally, Aggie super-senior Dakotah Mohr popped in the winner on a sweet backhanded shot with eight seconds left. So I had plenty to write about no matter what.

But here's the thing: when the Aggies play at home, I'm busy keeping the official scoresheet for the game. When the team goes on the road, I'm at the mercy of the information provided from the host. Or if I'm there, I'm so busy taking photos that I miss the gory details of the game itself. In fact, there have been times when I've sat down to write my story and had to check the results to remember the score. (Yeah, those details.)

In this case, I gambled on whether or not to come down, knowing that the weather might prevent me from breaking out thousands of dollars worth of camera equipment. When I arrived, the wind and rain indeed forced me to leave the gear in the car (which, in Stockton, is a different kind of gamble). So with no camera and no scorer duties, I actually got to watch a game like most of you -- as a spectator.

Almost.

Standing behind our bench with a pad and pen, I jotted little notes of the game, in case the blow-by-blow account of the game would play into the recap. Sometimes it doesn't: if a game is quite lopsided from the start, often a player's individual statistical totals will form the lead. But if the game is close, as it was here, then the incremental moments determine the ebb and flow of the contest. These don't always show up in the official scoresheet.

For example, here are a few lines quoted verbatim from my fourth-quarter notes:

645 B7 at 1, turns & fires, cross cage (6-4)

541 Dunn stl, CA goal (6-5)

457 B6 shot, Riane SV! Feeney CA, pass from Riane (6-6)

436 Feeney stl

421 Began draws GK out, Eggert 4M lob as GK retreats (6-7), 3-0 run Aggies

326 Eggert wide left

307 PAC off. foul

254 Sutt. bar out, gets rebound, Ags TO

Later in the game, it reads like this:

108 Sutterley BIG stl @ 2M

057 PAC 5 stl entry pass

033 B7 shot SV!

008 Faber to Mohr backhand! (7-8)

000 B7 shot @buzz fell short

Most of it reads like gibberish, even to water polo enthusiasts who would understand some of the terminology coded in there. I put the score in parentheses to tell me where the actual goals were, throw in exclamation points and other editorial hints to remind me of some key non-scoring play. For example, here is a favorite from earlier in the game: 
117 Eggert draws excl., Aggie 6-on-5... Feeney off GK hands BOOM (4-4)

This stuff is just enough for me to piece together a story that provides the detail of an eyewitness account rather than of a guy reading through the official boxscore. My handwriting, normally legible, looks more like a doctor's signature -- both because I'm writing quickly and because my hands were cold. In a few cases, I have no idea what I meant by my note (e.g. "425 Sutt/Mohr/Feen trip" is now beyond decipherable).

Although I do scribble a few notes at home games, my job as official scorer takes precedence. When the team plays nearby, I go into photographer mode, which means I'm more interested in framing a moment in the lens then knowing what actually happened. But today, I had neither job and I got to watch a game.

And I've gotta say, it was pretty enjoyable. So hopefully the recap does it justice.

Mark Honbo, assistant athletics communications director, will not make the trip down to Irvine and Long Beach next weekend. So while all humanity will be stripped from those recaps, hopefully the result -- i.e. a UC Davis win -- remains.

For Those Scoring At Home...

WHAT IS AN RQS?

UC Davis women's gymnastics hosts the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation Championships at the Pavilion Saturday night (meet time is 6 p.m., tickets are available via Tickets.com). While the Aggie student populace will have completed its examinations, the gymnasts will have one more two-hour final.

For what it's worth, the last time this meet came to the Pavilion, UC Davis posted a 194.700, taking down its first-ever MPSF title and setting a school record that still stands.

At this time of year, I inevitably get asked about an oft-quoted figure: the regional-qualifying score, or RQS for short. What it means is rather self-explanatory – it's a ranking system for qualifying teams and/or individuals to the NCAA regional meets. Steve Troester, the diehard among diehards, compiles these rankings at his website.

How it is calculated is less well-known. In fact, the math is pretty simple. Take the top six scores, with a minimum of three coming from road meets. Throw out the highest score, then average the rest.

The Aggies' RQS works out as follows:

Away #1: 194.150 (Mar. 16)
Away #2: 194.025 (Mar. 11)
Away #3: 192.900 (Feb. 24)
Away/Home #4: 193.875 (Feb. 10)
Away/Home #5: 191.600 (Mar. 2)
Away/Home #6: 191.600 (Jan. 27)

Lop off the 194.150 set at San Jose State last weekend and add up the remaining five, you get 964. Divide that by five and you get 192.800.

The same is done with an individual. Here's Katie Yamamura in the all-around:

Away #1: 39.225 (Mar. 11)
Away #2: 39.050 (Feb. 24)
Away #3: 38.725 (Jan. 6)
Away/Home #4: 39.125 (Jan. 27)
Away/Home #5: 39.125 (Feb. 10)
Away/Home #6: 38.450 (Mar. 16)

Toss the school-record 39.225, average the remaining five and you get 38.895. This is the score that has a regional berth locked up. So even though the NCAA will not announce the field officially until after all the conference championships are done, Team Yami might as well start booking flights to Sea-Tac right now.

* * * * *

AN IDEA WHOSE TIME WILL COME, LET'S HOPE SOON

After an incredibly hot start for UC Davis, the Causeway Cup standings have gotten rather interesting. The Aggies secured 35 points in the fall then added another 10 from women's basketball's home victory on December 19. But the Hornet gymnasts are enjoying one of their best seasons to date, even outscoring the Aggies during their mid-March hot streak. Sacramento State also picked up some steam in men's and women's tennis, men's basketball and softball.

It all comes down to baseball (home and home in April), men's golf (a common tournament on the Sunday after Picnic Day) and track & field (a dual at Sacramento on April 27), and it's anyone's ballgame.

Both schools are working out how to resolve the rained-out game on February 29, which is officially listed as postponed. If this contest is not rescheduled, the likely scenario will be to recalculate the softball rivalry as two games worth 2.5 points each. If the game shows up later in the season, a mighty five-thirds of a point remain up for grabs.

Although it has not come into play in the eight years of the Causeway Cup, I have opted to install a new rule into the scoring: a postseason bonus.

Under current rules, the Causeway rivalry in any given sport is worth five points. Football, volleyball and the two basketball teams contest for 10 points. If a sport squares off multiple times in a year, those points are divided by the number of matchups. This stuff is summarized in the link above, so I see no need to go any further into it.

However, I would like to see the two schools agree on adding another five points in the event of a meeting in the postseason.

Think about this for a moment.

Imagine if both UC Davis and Sacramento State were to reach an NCAA regional in softball. Or perhaps both qualify teams for the national bracket in men's soccer. Apply this to whatever your favorite sport is, and let it settle into your brain. Shouldn't the magnitude of that postseason matchup be worth extra when it comes to Causeway bragging rights?

As of this moment, there are no rules governing what happens on such an occasion. In fact, most rules are unwritten, falling under the "gentleman's agreement" between the two athletics departments. Thus, a chance meeting in the postseason could be worth nothing. Or it could simply recalculate the points per game. There is nothing on paper because it hasn't happened yet.

But again, imagine if it did. I'll use baseball as an example. For 2011-12, the two meetings are worth 2.5 each. Suppose the Aggies and Hornets split. Then they both make a regional hosted at, say, Stanford. They play each other two more times on that stage. Would we suddenly reduce each game to 1.25? Would we not count it at all? In this writer's opinion, both of those solutions seem unpalatable.

The powers that be once determined that football, volleyball and basketball should be worth extra points because of the high-profile nature of those sports. By that philosophy, I believe we should add extra points if our teams meet up in an NCAA championship. Or the NIT or WNIT, for that matter. I've written up an incredibly rough draft of rules for a postseason bonus (including stipulation for a few sport-specific situations). I hope the two schools will take some time to discuss and amend them.

It hasn't happened in the short history of the Causeway Cup, in part because UC Davis was not eligible for the postseason for the first few years. It rarely happened even when both teams were strong Division II programs (a football playoff, a few meetings at the USA Gymnastics meet, etc.) But as both programs continue to develop, it certainly could happen, and I'd like to see our Causeway Cup factor it in.

Until that happens... yeah, I'm pretty sure I'll be at that track meet on April 27. It could be a doozy.

Mark Honbo, assistant athletics communications director, still recalls the sight of Sacramento State beating his Aggies in the first round of the 1988 NCAA Division II playoffs. That he would still advocate a postseason bonus for the Causeway Cup despite this childhood memory reveals the strength of his conviction toward this idea.

Goooooooal.

The age of Facebook and social media is a wonderful thing. A current Aggie soccer player shared this about a former Aggie soccer player. And now I share it with you.



Yeah, quite a bit shorter than my usual entry. But here, the picture is worth the proverbial thousand words.

Lacrosse Alphabet Soup

Despite the name of the overall blog, this entry will actually look inside a boxscore.

With UC Davis women's lacrosse just days away from hosting Long Island in its 2012 home opener (1 p.m. at Aggie Stadium, admission is free, /plug), it's perhaps worth taking a few moments to decipher the sport's boxscore for the uninitiated fans.

For starters, women's lacrosse has shown itself to be one of the most challenging sports for which to keep stats or – more precisely – for which to keep the Automated Scorebook for Lacrosse software. To the untrained eye, it resembles soccer and field hockey due to its grass field and the cage-style goals. In reality, the game's stats more closely resemble that of basketball, only it takes place on a field larger than a football gridiron AND has 24 players on the field rather than the hardwood's ten.

As such, it catches many of my SID peers by surprise. San Diego State, which added women's lacrosse this year, wisely assigned their basketball statistician to the sport. Although the Aztec stat crew experienced a trial by fire in the opening weekend, I suspect they will become one of the better desks because of this.

Secondly, this blog entry is not intended to serve as a primer for the game's rules. I could go a thousand words on the "shooting space" and "three second" rules, and yet I fully admit I would have a hard time officiating a game. I leave that for the women and men in stripes. If you're interested on understanding some of the more esoteric rules of women's lacrosse, the US Lacrosse website has a nice HQ on the topic: http://www.uslacrosse.org/the_sport/womens_rules.phtml

No, my aim is to provide a walkthrough of the boxscore and stats, both for fans and for media members who cover the sport. After all, that's the stuff that comes from my desk. I've boldfaced the key points, but you can sift through my verbage for more detail. The true gluttons for punishment can download the NCAA Statistician's Manual.

Here is a sample of a boxscore from one of last year's games. The new version of the software looks much more stylish but this one has some detail worth pointing out. Soak it in for a moment:

GOALS (G), ASSISTS (A), POINTS (PTS)
I probably don't need to get into these. Points equals goals plus assists in lacrosse (i.e. they're given equal weight). Water polo and ice hockey do the same. Compare this to soccer, goals are worth two points while assists are one.

The assist is defined fairly similarly to basketball – it is the pass that contributes directly to a goal. I would argue it is the most subjective of stats (in both lacrosse and basketball) but it is important to note that there is no limit to the amount of time or the number of steps. If the scoring player had to make any significant effort to elude a defender (other than the goalkeeper) before scoring, this will likely wipe out the assist. The move, not the pass, is what set up the goal.

SHOTS (SH) & SHOTS ON GOAL (SOG)
This also doesn't need much explanation. A shot on goal simply means the ball went into the net or would have had it not been impeded. If you miss wide or high, or your shot hit the cage, it's not on goal. Simple as that. A team's SOG will equal its goals plus its opponent's saves.

I tend to include the SOG distinction on the boxscore but I've found it is too often confounded to be meaningful. Just as baseball/softball fans know that a pitch in the strike zone is not always better than one that missed, a shot on goal is not necessarily a "good" shot. But overall, they indicate a shooter's overall accuracy.

FREE-POSITION SHOTS (FPS)
In recent years, the official statistical term has changed to "eight-meter shots" and I expect future versions of the stat software will catch up to the lingo. For now, these still appear on stat reports as FPS and many coaches and fans continue to refer to them as such.

In oversimplified terms, the eight-meter shot is akin to the penalty shot in soccer or water polo. Sort of. The penalty shot tends to be one-on-one, shooter vs. goalkeeper, and starts from a single spot on the field. The eight-meter shot involves other defenders and may take place at one of the five hashmarks around the cage.

DRAW CONTROLS (DC)

Basketball games open with a jump ball or tip-off. Water polo games start with a sprint, in which a player from each team races toward the ball placed in the center of the course. (The short-lived XFL borrowed water polo's sprint to replace the traditional kickoff. How they avoided a fatality is beyond me.) Ice hockey and men's lacrosse have the faceoff. Women's lacrosse begins with a draw:

Once the official blows the whistle, the two players flip the ball into the air and it becomes a mad scramble by both teams to gain possession. Whoever wins control of the draw gets – you guessed it – a draw control. UC Davis led all of NCAA Division I while Hannah Mirza (shown above) set a school record in this very category.

In most sports with a goal, the scoring team concedes possession to the opponent. In soccer or water polo, the team that gave up the goal will be awarded the next possession at the center line. Sink a bucket or hit your free throws in basketball, and the ball automatically goes into the other team's hands. (In pickup games, you probably called this "loser's outs.")

But imagine if in basketball, the two teams returned to the center circle for a tip. A particularly tall player and/or one with some serious hops could give his or her team a substantial advantage. As former Aggie head coach Brendan Blakeley liked to say, "lacrosse is one of the few sports in which you can score a goal and get the ball back."

TURNOVERS (T/O) & CAUSED TURNOVERS (CT)
Did I mention before that lacrosse plays like basketball? These two categories are where the stats are the most similar. And I'll skip the ground ball for a moment, for reasons that will soon be apparent.

Most people know what a turnover is. Give up possession to the other team and you get dinged for one. Fling an errant pass out of bounds? Get the ball stripped by an opposing defender? Throw an interception? Commit an offensive foul? All turnovers.

A caused turnover is lacrosse-speak for a steal: a "positive, aggressive action" that forces your opponent to commit a turnover. Sometimes a boxscore will further break down this category into the types of caused turnovers, in order of frequency:

Stick Check (SC) - use your stick to knock the ball out of your opponent's stick such that your team gains possession, and a tally goes under the CT column for you.

Interception (INT) - slightly distinct from the definition in football, because you have to aggressively create the situation. In football, you can get an INT simply by being in the right place at the right time (see also Larry Brown, Super Bowl XXX). In lacrosse, if an opponent throws a bad pass straight at you and you catch it, you won't get a CT. But if an opponent throws a pass and you leap up or run into a passing lane to pick it off, you'll get a CT. As such, this subcategory requires the statkeeper to exercise a certain amount of judgment.

Blocked Pass (BLK) - the counterpart to the interception. Knock down a pass such that your team gains possession, and you'll get a caused turnover for it.

Drawn Charge (DCH) - I love this rule, and I wish basketball had it. If you draw a charge, you'll be awarded a CT. And chances are, you earned it.

If you've come this far, you're ready for a stat that is unique to women's lacrosse.

GROUND BALL (GB)
The ground ball has gone through both slight tweaks and outright overhauls in the past 13 years. Ultimately, it comes down to two simple tests: a ground ball is a a) change of possession that b) takes place during live-ball play.

As one would guess by the "change of possession" test, the majority of turnovers result in ground balls. Remember the stick check above? You knock the ball out of your opponent's stick. Think about the blocked pass, in which you got a piece of an opponent's pass. In either case, whichever member of your team picks up that ball – yourself included – earns a GB.

Now go back to the interception. If you pick off a pass, you'll get a ground ball. In fact, all INTs are also ground balls. But I poked fun at Super Bowl XXX MVP Larry Brown for his "right place, right time" picks against Neil O'Donnell. By lacrosse rules, he wouldn't get an INT but he would get a GB.

The "live-ball play" test adds another element to the ground ball. I mentioned earlier that the majority of turnovers result in ground balls. But not all of 'em. If your opponent throws an errant pass that sails out of bounds, the official will award possession to your team. But no player earns a GB because the ball went dead when it crossed the boundary line.

Another example of the live-ball test takes place when a foul resolves the change of possession. So your opponent loses the ball. You go after it and get fouled before you get there. The official awards you the ball. You won't get a GB because the possession was gained while the ball was dead. But if your stick was in contact with the ball at the time of the foul, you will get a GB because the rulemakers have decided that contact shall constitute possession.

The other instance of a ground ball takes place when a missed shot is recovered in live play, somewhat like basketball's rebound.

I'll pause for a minute to allow you to reach for some aspirin.

You shoot the ball. The ball misses and returns to play. Whoever wins that ball will earn a GB, assuming she picks it up while the ball is still live.

You shoot the ball. The ball misses and heads out of bounds. Whoever is nearest to the ball (and inbounds) will be handed the ball. She does not get a GB because the ball was dead when it crossed the boundary line.

You shoot the ball. The ball misses and heads out of bounds. But a player stops it before it can cross the boundary. She gets a GB.

Pop that asprin.

You shoot the ball. The goalie catches it. If the shot would have missed, give the goalie a ground ball but not a save. If the shot was on target and would have gone into the net, give the goalie a save but not a ground ball.

You shoot the ball. The ball hits the pipe and begins rolling toward the goal. If the goalie stops it, she gets a save but no GB. If another player stops it, that player gets a GB but not a save.

Drink some water with that aspirin. 

You shoot the ball. The goalie saves it but doesn't control it. Whoever picks up the loose ball gets a ground ball. If the goalie saves it, doesn't control it immediately, but picks up her own ball, give her the ground ball if she had to contest for it. If no one was around her, she only gets the save without the ground ball.

The good news for statkeepers: most missed shots will not have a ground ball. Shots that miss high or wide generally sail beyond the field's end line (negating any possibility of a GB). Shots that are saved usually stay in the goalkeeper's stick head. Shots that hit a post or are blocked cause a statkeeper's hair to stand on end.

CLEARS
This final category shows up on the team stats of a boxscore or season report. It measures a team's effectiveness in transitioning the ball from defense to offense.

As soon as your team gains possession behind the defensive restraining line (loosely similar to the blue line in ice hockey), a clear attempt begins. If you can get the ball across the opposite restraining line without turning the ball over, it's a good clear. If you cough it up along the way for any reason, it's a failed clear (or broken clear).

The NCAA complicated this a bit by factoring in situations when a yellow card forces a team to play short-handed. I'll spare you the gory details but suffice to say a team operating a player down gets a freeroll: they'll generally be credited for a good clear when successful, but they won't be charged with a failed one if they don't make it.


In the past two seasons, UC Davis has been successful on 347 of 443 clear attempts for a 78.3 percent success rate. The Aggies went a combined 21-11. In the two previous years, UC Davis made 370 of 517 clears for a 71.6 percentage, falling below 70 percent in 2009. The team had a 13-23 record in that span. Last year's NCAA runner-up Maryland cleared at 84.6 percent. Semifinalist Duke finished at 79.2 percent. (Champion Northwestern and semifinalst North Carolina did not report clearing numbers.) The three lowest-ranked teams cleared at 68.4, 71.0 and 55.6 percent.

During our weekly meetings, head coach Elaine Jones will often comment on how well the Aggies transitioned the ball when evaluating their performance from the previous weekend. Chances are, I already saw it in the boxscore.

* * * * *

I've kept stats for the Aggie basketball teams since the mid-1980s and used the StatCrew software since Doug Dull introduced it to our office in 1991. I was essentially a one-man volleyball stat crew for a JC championship and a Division III regional. The long, scrambling rallies of those tournaments create quite a challenge for a statistician. Yet in my experience, no sport is quite as nerve-wracking for an SID as women's lacrosse.

If you've read this far, you can see why.

-Mark Honbo, assistant athletics communications director, gives a huge nod to former Virginia and Intercollegiate Women's Lacrosse Coaches Association info guru Chip Rogers. Now an assistant field hockey coach at Miami (Ohio), Rogers codified collegiate women's lacrosse stats in the late 1990s and continued to educate his industry for the next decade, raising the profile of the game like almost no other individual.

An Old Rival Returns

UC Davis began its move to Division I almost a full decade ago. UC San Diego passed an initiative in 2007 that granted its student-athletes $500 maximum grants-in-aid, allowing the school to maintain a minimum requirement for remaining in Division II. The Tritons were a Div. III program until 2000, then had run as a non-scholarship D-II until five years ago.

UC Davis women's water polo now competes in the Big West Conference, which has featured at least five Top 20 teams every year. The league will get even stronger next year when perennial Top 10 programs Hawai'i and San Diego State enter the fray. UC San Diego plays in the Western Water Polo Association, an affiliation whose membership ranges from traditional WCC programs like Loyola Marymount and Santa Clara to small Division III schools from around the state. (Note: the NCAA does not break water polo down into divisions.)

UC Davis has played UC San Diego 31 times, most recently at the UCI Invitational last weekend. The Aggies have won 20 of those matchups, including Sunday's 14-6 victory down in Newport Beach. Saturday's Aggie Shootout matchup will be meeting No. 32, and the first since 2007.

But a Div. I school facing one that barely qualified for Div. II? Big West vs. WWPA? A 20-11 series record? Why does this feel like such a heated rivalry?

Take a peek:

UC DAVIS vs. UC SAN DIEGO ALL-TIME SERIES

Feb. 15, 1997 - La Jolla (W, 3-0)
Apr. 26, 1997 - Neutral (L, 2-4)
Mar. 1, 1998 - Neutral (W, 4-3)
Apr. 25, 1998 - Neutral  (W, 2-1)
Feb. 12, 1999 - La Jolla (W, 6-2)
Feb. 27, 1999 - Neutral (L-ot, 4-5)
Apr. 11, 1999 - Neutral (W-ot, 7-5)
Apr. 9, 2000 - Neutral (L, 4-5)
Mar. 31, 2001 - Neutral (W-ot, 8-7)
Apr. 28, 2001 - La Jolla (W, 5-4)
Mar. 29, 2002 - Neutral (L, 4-6)
Apr. 7, 2002 - Davis (W, 7-4)
Apr. 27, 2002 - Neutral (L, 5-6)
Feb. 9, 2003 - La Jolla (L, 4-5)
Feb. 23, 2003 - Davis  (W, 3-1)
Apr. 5, 2003 - Neutral (W, 6-4)
Apr. 26, 2003 - Neutral (L, 5-6)
Feb. 21, 2004 - Davis (L, 6-7)
Apr. 24, 2004 - Neutral (L, 6-10)
Feb. 6, 2005 - La Jolla (W, 4-3)
Apr. 10, 2005 - Davis (W, 6-5)
Apr. 30, 2005 - Davis (W-sd, 7-6)
Feb. 26, 2006 - Neutral (L, 4-5)
Apr. 8, 2006 - Davis (W, 6-5)
Apr. 1, 2007 - Davis (W, 6-1)
Apr. 28, 2007 - Neutral (W, 7-6)
Mar. 7, 2008 - Neutral (W, 5-4)
Feb. 7, 2009 - La Jolla  (W, 10-9)
Mar. 27, 2010 - Neutral (L, 9-10)
Feb. 27, 2011 - Neutral (W, 10-9)
Feb. 26, 2012 - Neutral (W, 14-6)

Twenty of the 31 matchups were settled by a single goal (marked in gold). Four went into overtime, including the 2005 conference semifinal, which ended in sudden victory. And before you pass off the clashes as an artifact from UC Davis' WWPA days, notice that the previous five games were one-goal games. Oh, and consider also that UCSD returned six of the top eight scorers from the team that made the NCAA Championship a year ago.

Head coach Jamey Wright even downplays the recent eight-goal win (the widest margin in series history): "I think they're a much better team than that score indicated. We've never played an eight-goal game with San Diego. Last year, we beat them by one at Irvine only because [Ashley] Chandler was able to slow down that freshmen center who was killing us."

"This will be a tight game. That's my prediction."

Hard to argue with that.

-Mark Honbo, assistant director of athletics communications, will be among those who will confirm Coach Wright's prediction on Saturday. Game time is 2 p.m. out at the Schaal Aquatics Center. UC San Diego will also face Pacific in neutral waters at 10 a.m. that morning.