Cal Poly to Face San Diego in First Round of Los Angeles Regional
5/30/2013 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
WEEKLY NOTES: CAL POLY | SAN DIEGO | UCLA | SAN DIEGO STATE
2013 CAL POLY BASEBALL POSTSEASON MEDIA GUIDE (pdf)
QUARTET OF MUSTANGS EARN FIRST-TEAM ALL-BWC HONORS
NCAA BRACKET | LOS ANGELES REGIONAL BRACKET
LOS ANGELES REGIONAL TOURNAMENT CENTRAL
AUDIO STREAM | VIDEO STREAM | LIVE STATS
SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. -- No. 21 Cal Poly (39-17), earning its second NCAA Division I regional playoff berth with a second-place finish in the Big West Conference, will play No. 25 San Diego (35-23), the West Coast Conference Tournament champion, in the opening round of the Los Angeles Regional on Friday at 2 p.m. at Jackie Robinson Stadium (1,250). UCLA (39-17) meets San Diego State (31-29) in the second game at 6 p.m.
The game will be aired live on ESPN Radio 1280 with Tom Barket calling the play-by-play. The game also will be available on ESPN3.com (Trey Bender, Jerry Kindall) as well as via audio stream and live stats at GoPoly.com.
Cal Poly, 36-20 a year ago and winner of 14 of its final 17 games, returned 23 letter winners, including seven position starters and 11 pitchers (four starters), off its 2012 squad which swept six series, won nine of 14 weekend series, finished one game behind champion Cal State Fullerton in the Big West and ended atop the conference in most key offensive categories, including average, runs, hits, doubles, home runs and RBI.
Under 11th-year head coach Larry Lee, the Mustangs won their first seven games of the 2013 season and sprinted to a 13-1 start. Never losing more than three games in a row, Cal Poly steadily climbed 17 games over the .500 mark during the next seven weeks of play. A late-season surge with 11 wins in their last 14 games enabled the Mustangs to break the school Division I record for wins in a season and pull to within two of Cal Poly's all-time mark of 41 wins in both 1977 and 1992.
Both Cal Poly and San Diego played their final games of the 2013 regular season in Stockton last weekend. The Mustangs won two of three games at Pacific's Klein Family Field while, a couple miles to the south, the Toreros captured the West Coast Conference Tournament title with a 2-0 victory over San Francisco at Banner Island Ballpark.
Cal Poly, which reached the 20-win mark before the end of March for the first time since the NCAA's uniform start date was implemented in 2008, surpassed the 30-win mark for the ninth time in the last 14 years and clinched its 11th winning season since 2000 by sweeping UC Riverside on May 3-5. The Mustangs moved 21 games above the .500 mark for the first time in their 19-year Division I history by sweeping Cal State Northridge on May 17-19 and are seeking their third 40-win campaign this weekend.
Cal Poly hit over the .300 mark in seven of its 15 weekend series, including a .358 mark in the non-conference series against UC Santa Barbara and .342 against UC Davis. The Mustangs, however, hit a season-low .172 in the UC Irvine series three week ago but bounced back with a .309 mark against Cal State Northridge and .310 at Pacific, the team batting average inching up to .279.
Senior second baseman Denver Chavez (pictured above) leads the Mustangs and is among the top five in the Big West with his .362 batting average. He also is among the conference leaders in hits (84), runs scored (53), on-base percentage (.425), doubles (14), steals (17) and total bases (107). Sophomore right fielder Nick Torres sports a .336 mark with seven home runs and leads the team in RBI with 47 and the Big West with eight sacrifice flies.
Sophomore center fielder Jordan Ellis is hitting .329 and leads the team and Big West in triples with six while freshman designated hitter Brian Mundell has a .266 average with 38 RBI and 10 home runs on the year, surpassing Matt Jensen among freshmen home run hitters in Cal Poly's 19-year Division I history. Junior left fielder David Armendariz is hitting .278 with 22 RBI and 11 steals while junior third baseman Jimmy Allen has lifted his average to .281 with 10 doubles and 34 RBI.
Cal Poly's three starting outfielders -- Torres (18 games, fourth-longest in Cal Poly's Division I history), Ellis (13) and Armendariz (10) -- all had long hitting streaks snapped in recent weeks. Armendariz carries an eight-game streak into the Los Angeles Regional.
The Mustang starting rotation of senior right-hander Joey Wagman (12-3, 3.11 ERA), sophomore southpaw Matt Imhof (7-3, 2.52 ERA) and freshman righty Casey Bloomquist (6-2, 4.78 ERA) has allowed just 89 earned runs in 56 games while relievers Reed Reilly, Michael Holback, Chase Johnson and Taylor Chris have combined for 17 saves. With his 14 saves, Reilly has tied the all-time single-season school record previously set by Mike Bille in 2005.
Lee earned his 300th win on May 5, 2012, in a 12-7 decision at UC Davis. Lee (348-270-2) surpassed Berdy Harr (297-249-6 from 1973-83) as Cal Poly's winningest head baseball coach during the Pacific series a week earlier. Steve McFarland was 290-257 in 10 seasons (1984-93) at the helm of the Mustangs while Ritch Price was 217-228-1 in Cal Poly's first eight years of play in Division I (1995-2002).
Lee has guided Cal Poly to a quartet of 3-0 starts with season-opening series sweeps over San Diego in 2005, Fresno State in 2006, Oklahoma State in 2012 and San Francisco this year. The Mustangs won their first seven games for the first time since 1981. The 1954 and 1974 Mustangs started 8-0 and the school record start to a season was 10-0 by the 1951 team coached by Robert Mott.
San Diego, coached by Rich Hill (15th season (516-354-3), Cal Lutheran '84), returned 23 lettermen, including six position starters and eight pitchers, off a team which went 40-17 a year ago, finished second in the West Coast Conference at 15-9 and went 0-2 in the Los Angeles Regional at UCLA.
After being swept by San Diego State to open the season, San Diego won 25 of its next 37 games and finished three games behind Gonzaga in the WCC regular season standings. The Toreros have never lost more than three games in a row and won series against Kent State, BYU, Oregon State, Santa Clara, Saint Mary's and Portland.
Top hitters for San Diego are third baseman Kris Bryant (.340, 31 home runs, 62 RBI), left fielder AJ Robinson (.326, 30 RBI, nine steals) and first baseman Connor Joe (.321, seven home runs, 40 RBI). Bryant leads the nation in home runs (31), home runs per game (.53), slugging percentage (.860), total bases (185), walks (62), walks per game (1.07), runs (78) and runs per game (1.34).
The pitching staff is led by right-handers Dylan Covey (4-4, 5.22 ERA) and Michael Wagner (2-5, 4.57 ERA), lefty Louie Lechich (3-3, 3.13 ERA) and freshman southpaw PJ Conlon (9-0, 1.65 ERA). The closer is southpaw Max Homick (5-1, 2.91 ERA, five saves).
San Diego is hitting .290 this season with 104 doubles, 14 triples and 64 home runs (third in the nation), has compiled a 3.97 staff ERA and has committed 100 errors in 58 games for a .956 fielding percentage.
San Diego has qualified for an NCAA regional eight times and is 7-12 in its previous seven appearances.
Cal Poly and San Diego have met 57 times on the baseball field since the series began in 1965. The Mustangs hold a 29-28 advantage, though the Toreros won the last meeting, 5-4, a year ago in the Aztec Invitational at Tony Gwynn Stadium. Cal Poly is 18-22 against San Diego since the Mustangs moved to Division I prior to the 1995 season.
Cal Poly, ranked as high as No. 16 by Collegiate Baseball Newspaper poll earlier this year, is ranked No. 21 by both Collegiate Baseball Newspaper and USA Today this week. Last year the Mustangs were ranked No. 22 by Collegiate Baseball Newspaper after their 7-1 start and No. 27 after sweeping UC Irvine in early April.
Cal Poly has won at least 30 games nine times in the last 14 seasons, has posted its 11th winning season since 2000 and has finished in the upper half of the conference standings 10 times in the last 12 years.
