Opening day at Aggie Stadium

The UC Davis lacrosse team opened Aggie Stadium today with a resounding 17-5 victory over Saint Mary's. Below are some photos from the first competitive event in the new $30 million facility. For all the reaction, check out Monday's Enterprise. These photos are from Davis Enterprise staffer (and noted lacrosse enthusiast) Wayne Tilcock.

UC Davis' Megan O'Connor takes the opening draw against Saint Mary's Abbie Coleman.

Eri Ichikawa (8) takes a shot in the second half. This sort of shows how the scoreboard towers over the stadium.

The crowd was announced as 352, which senior Megan O'Connor said was the biggest in her time at UCD.

I watched the first half of the game from the field. It's a pretty impressive view from down there, in that all you can see is the stadium around you (The Genome and Biomedical Sciences Building, upon which the webcam is mounted, is the only non-stadium building you can see from the field). The sound inside is pretty incredible. Standing with staff writer Conor Tekautz against the East wall, we could hear the officials make calls from the other side of the field. The place is going to be extremely noisy when construction is complete and there are 12,000 people there for the Cal Poly game. It's exciting.

In the coming weeks, administrators will make a decision on lights. The opinion here -- and given my selfish deadline-driven preference for day games, it gives me no pleasure to say this -- is that lights aren't optional. This was a mild morning, but, if you click on the top photo you can see the heat waves coming off the field. The climate on the field and the climate in the stands are different. It's almost like getting into your car in Oakland and exiting it in Davis. Today it wasn't so bad. But at 1 p.m. in early September, it could approach 120 degrees at field level. There's a reason why UCD usually plays its early-season games at 6 p.m.