UC Davis third baseman Daniel Descalso just missed in his attempt at program history. The Aggies, meanwhile, hope Eddie Gamboa gave the team a glimpse into the future.
Making his first start of the year in the season finale, Gamboa flummoxed Washington State in a 4-2 Aggie victory Sunday at Dobbins Stadium. UCD took two of three from the Cougars, who finished tied for sixth in the nine-team Pac-10 standings this season. UCD went 24-32 against what the baseball ratings website Boyd’s World called the 35th most difficult schedule in the nation.
Gamboa, who missed most of last season with elbow problems that required Tommy John surgery, threw 35 1/3 innings in relief before making his start Sunday. In his role as a starter, he had minimal trouble with Washington State lineup. He pitched a complete game, fanning seven batters and allowing just two runs.
“I expected to go five or six innings and get out of there,” Gamboa said. “It felt good (to start again). It felt kind of like home again. It was me against the batters, and it was nice.”
Descalso, meanwhile, went 2-for-4 for the Aggies. He finished the season the season with a .397 batting average. He had spent the entire season hovering around the .400 mark, threatening to become the first UCD player since Dave Nix in 1995 to reach that mark.
He came up just short, going 4-for-12 in the series against the Cougars, but said it was impossible to be dissatisfied with that sort of year.
“I can’t complain,” he said. “It would have been nice to hit .400, but I can sleep at night with .397.”
Descalso is a junior, but is expected to be selected on the first day of next week’s MLB Entry Draft.
The junior was part of the Aggies’ three-run fourth, an inning in which the Aggies needed just one hit to post that total. Descalso reached second on when his grounder to shortstop was thrown into the UCD dugout, moved to third on an inexplicable pickoff throw by catcher Mike Gilbert that sailed over the uncovered base into centerfield and scored on Aaron Hanke’s grounder to short.
Then -- after an hit batter, error and walk loaded the bases -- Michael Jacobellis chopped a two-run single back up the middle.
Jacob Jefferies’ sacrifice fly in the eighth inning scored Brandon Oliver to add an insurance run.
The game was the final athletic event of the campus’ four-year transition to Division I. The Enterprise doesn’t publish on Monday because of Memorial Day, but we’ll wrap up this baseball season in the coming days. Then we’ll talk more about the end of the transition, which still has some administrative machinations left, but is done in terms of on-field activity.
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