NOTES AND QUOTES for a Monday in the Napa Valley:

Arizona State’s Brett Wallace was named as a Preseason All-American by Baseball America, the publication announced Friday. Wallace, a former Justin-Siena High School star, earned Second-Team honors.

Wallace, who is from Sonoma, was the 2007 Pacific 10 Conference Player of the Year and a consensus First-Team All-American. He won the Pac-10’s Triple Crown last season, batting .404 with 16 home runs and 78 RBIs. He collected 107 hits for the defending Pac-10 champs, helping lead ASU to the College World Series for the 20th time in school history.

Wallace was named to the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association All-America First Team in December. The first baseman-third baseman is also rated by Rivals.com as the top returning junior in the country.

He started 29 games and batted .312 with 34 hits, including four doubles, two home runs and 26 RBIs, for the U.S. National Team last summer.

Justin-Siena’s sold-out crab feed earlier this month was a big success, raising $45,000 for the school’s athletic department.

Starting point guard Alexis Mezzetta had one of her best all-around games as a collegian — 17 points on 5-of-8 shooting from the floor, 4-of-5 on 3-point attempts, four assists, three steals and four rebounds in 36 minutes — to lead the UC San Diego women’s basketball team to a 72-59 win Saturday night over Sonoma State at RIMAC Arena in La Jolla.

Mezzetta, a Justin-Siena graduate who is from Sonoma, had five points and a game-high eight assists in 33 minutes for San Diego during a 76-65 loss to Humboldt State Friday evening.

Tom Long had two hits for the Cal State Stanislaus baseball team in a 9-5 opening day loss to Western Oregon on Tuesday in Turlock.

Long is a Vintage graduate and also played at Napa Valley College, where he was Honorable Mention All-Bay Valley Conference.

Jimmy Cacho tied for 20th, firing rounds of 71, 68 and 69 for a 2-under-par 208 total and helping the Santa Clara University men’s golf team to a 12th-place finish at the Hilo Invitational at Waikoloa, Hawaii over the weekend. He had the low round for his team during the second round.

It was the opening tournament of the Broncos’ spring schedule. Cacho, a Justin-Siena graduate who is from Green Valley, had a very consistent fall season for Santa Clara.

Stanford won the team title.

The 2008 softball season marks the first official Division I campaign for UC Davis, which completed a four-year transition from Division II. The last three years of that transformation took place under head coach Karen Yoder, a Napa resident. Over the past two years, the team has improved its win total by 24 games. That success culminated in a 31-27-1 record in 2007.

“Momentum-wise over the past three years, I think we’ve taken the proper steps to building toward this day of opening up in the Big West and our first Division I season,” Yoder said on the school’s athletic Web site. “I think we’ve made great strides over the past three years. How we finished last year in regards to record and the overall confidence of some of our younger players has helped allow us to build on that through the fall as well as into this spring.”

The Aggies feature Sarah O’Neill, a former Vintage standout from Napa who anchors the senior class. O’Neill begins her third and final season with Davis and returns as one of the team’s top power threats. She batted .287 as a junior with five homers and 26 RBIs. She also finished with 14 extra-base hits and was third on the team in batting.

O’Neill, who is slated as the team’s starting left-fielder, was one of three players to start all 59 games last season.

For the second straight season, Davis is not backing down from a very challenging schedule. Of the 65 games on the schedule, 29 will be against a total of 16 teams that played in last year’s NCAA Tournament. In addition, six opponents on the schedule are ranked in the USA Today/NFCA Top 25 Preseason Poll.

“I think we’re ready for it,” said Yoder, a former Napa Valley College head coach. “We’ve increased our talent and our team in preparation for this type of schedule. We need to sustain a schedule like this if we want to be a postseason program.

“I’m so excited about our tournament schedule,” said Yoder. “It sets us up great. We’re going at it against some top-notch competition.”

This year also marks Davis’ first in the Big West Conference.

“I think we’re on track. Everything is falling into line,”said Yoder. “We’re bringing in the right recruits and the right student-athletes who are highly-competitive and extremely excited about building on the legacy that was created here at Division II. They’re excited about the history of being the program’s first Division I team.”

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