Sports

In a season marred by injuries, the men’s basketball team had to adapt to new lineups throughout the season. One thing that never changed was center Dominic Calegari.

Players that give maximum effort on every play are rare, but the men’s basketball team has one in Joe Harden. Harden, the Notre Dame transfer from Acampo, Calif., put together another solid season offensively, coming in third on the team in scoring at 14.5 points per game while shooting 43 percent from the floor.

Heidi Heintz has made quite an impression. In her first season on the court for UC Davis, the Spokane, Wash. local led the team with a .486 field goal percentage and a .856 free-throw percentage while placing second in points (10.8) and rebounds (4.5) per game.

Tanya Ho has made major contributions to the UC Davis gymnastics team in her four-year career. The senior out of Elk Grove, Calif. has won a total of nine Mountain Pacific Sports Federation Gymnast of the Week honors since her freshman campaign. She has also captured 13 All-MPSF nods, including vault and all-around for four straight years. Last year she was even named the conference Gymnast of the Year.

Last year, when UC Davis came up short to UC Santa Barbara at the 2009 Big West Conference Championships, something clicked in Scott Weltz’s head. “We realized we were a really good team,” Weltz said. “This year, coach [Pete] Motekaitis was telling us that it was in our hands to win championships.”

When the men’s basketball team needed an offensive spark, they turned to Julian Welch. The 6’3″ guard from Elk Grove, Calif. consistently showed an ability to break down opposing defenses off the dribble while also punishing teams with his long-range shooting.

Who to watch: As a freshman, Michelle Espiritu started in 34 of the 45 games in which she played.

Who to watch: Coming off singles and doubles wins last Wednesday, Herzyl Legaspi did not earn any marks against Portland.

Going into the weekend, the Aggies knew that they had their work cut out for them. They were right. In a three game series against Cal State Fullerton, UC Davis failed to pick up a win and was outscored 46-13. “It was one of those series where we just couldn’t put it together,” said coach Rex Peters [cq]. “When we hit well enough to win, we couldn’t pitch. When we pitched well enough to win, we couldn’t hit.”

I’ve always enjoyed sports. I also consider myself to be somewhat athletic (that is, kind of good at a bunch of sports, but not really good at any specific one). Upon the realization I probably wasn’t going to play sports at a high level anymore (actually, I later played one year of club volleyball for UC Davis), I decided that writing about sports would allow me to maintain the connection.

Wednesday’s contest seemed to be going the Aggies’ way. UC Davis was up 3-2 over Montana and only needed to win one of the two remaining matches to seal a victory. Then Mother Nature caused the match to be postponed until the next day.

On Saturday, the Aggies refused to allow circumstance to influence their performance. Despite the Johnny Mathis Invitational beginning two hours behind schedule and the occurrence of technical malfunctions, UC Davis showed not only its composure and discipline, but also its talent.