NOTES AND QUOTES for a Saturday in the Napa Valley:

Grant Ayvazyan of Napa will get the start at fullback today for the UC Davis football team as the Aggies open the 2007 season at home against Western Washington. The noon kickoff takes place in new Aggie Stadium, a $31 million facility which is the newest collegiate stadium to open in the country.

The stadium, which has a Sportexe Synthetic Field surface, replaces Toomey Field.

Davis played its final game at Toomey against San Diego last November, closing a facility that opened in 1949 and secured the program’s 37th straight winning season.

The Aggies enjoyed 14 undefeated home seasons, most recently in 2002 when they went 4-0.

Ayvazyan is a 2003 Vintage High School graduate who started all 11 games last year for Davis. He was an All-Monticello Empire League player as a lineman and defensive end and a two-year captain for Vintage.

Ayvazyan (6-foot, 241 pounds), a senior, also played two years for Butte College-Oroville.

Today’s game will be carried by KHTK 1140 AM.

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Brett Wallace, a former Justin-Siena star, finished the summer for the U.S. national team, starting 29 games and batting .312 with 34 hits, including four doubles, two home runs and 26 RBIs. He also had a .982 fielding percentage.

The team, part of USA Baseball, took third place at the World Port Tournament in The Netherlands and won the silver medal at the Pan American Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Wallace batted fourth and was 3-for-4 with two RBIs in Team USA’s 10-0 win over Japan in a World Port Tournament game last month.

After playing in the College World Series, Wallace joined the national team and played first base and left field while also getting time at designated hitter.

The U.S. team went 25-12 during the summer.

Wallace is a sophomore infielder for Arizona State who was named as the Pacific-10 Conference Player of the Year, First-Team All-American, and First-Team All-Pac-10 last year.

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Vintage High graduate Ian Hetrick is listed second on the depth chart at quarterback for the University of Wyoming, which opens the football season at home today against Virginia. The game will be televised by Versus.

Hetrick, who is from Napa, transferred to Wyoming after two years at Santa Rosa Junior College.

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St. Helena High alumni are invited to attend the season-opening football game at the Saints’ new all-weather FieldTurf facility on Sept. 7 against Albany. Kickoff is 7:30 p.m.

Alums will be honored on the field at halftime, according to Saints athletic director Tom Hoppe.

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Senior Heather Dunn was steady as always, dishing out a match-high 48 assists as the Gonzaga University volleyball team knocked down 54 total team kills in a 3-1 non-conference loss to Washington State University Wednesday night at the Martin Centre in Spokane, Wash.

Dunn, a Justin-Siena graduate who finished with her second double-double of the season, also had 10 digs, two aces and two block assists.

The loss dropped the Zags to 2-2 on the season.

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Libero Natalie Facchini’s 85 digs last week pushed her to third place in the UC San Diego career record book for volleyball. The senior, a Vintage High graduate, has 1,158 digs.

The fourth-ranked NCAA Division II Tritons defeated Regis and Fort Lewis, while dropping a pair of five-game matches to Seattle Pacific and Southwest Minnesota State last week.

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Nicki Brown, a freshman from Napa, had 29 digs for the Cal State Stanislaus women’s volleyball team in a 3-0 loss to Seattle University at the Seawolf Spike Tournament at Sonoma State last week.

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Sophomore Lindsay Brown of Napa finished with 37 assists, 14 digs and seven kills for the Sonoma State University volleyball team in a 3-0 win over Notre Dame de Namur in Rohnert Park last Sunday.

E-mail Executive Sports Editor Marty James at mjames@napanews.com or call 256-2223.