Washington
Cal Poly Set to Open 2022 Season at Home Against Washington
2/15/2022 11:14:00 AM | Baseball
AUDIO STREAM: FRIDAY | SATURDAY | SUNDAY
VIDEO STREAM: FRIDAY | SATURDAY | SUNDAY
LIVE STATS: FRIDAY | SATURDAY | SUNDAY
GAME PROGRAM | MUSTANG INSIDER (Brooks and Larry Lee)
SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. -- Cal Poly (0-0, 0-0 Big West), which won its last seven games of the 2021 season and 11 of the last 12 en route to its 18th campaign of .500-plus baseball since 2000 and the Mustangs' 16th finish in the top four in the Big West Conference over the last 18 full seasons, opens its 2022 campaign, the 20th under head coach Larry Lee, this weekend with a three-game series against Washington (0-0, 0-0 Pac-12) inside Baggett Stadium (cap.: 3,138).
The Mustangs and the Huskies of 13th-year head coach Lindsay Meggs clash Friday at 6 p.m. followed by a 4 p.m. contest Saturday and the finale Sunday at 1 o'clock.
The first and third games of the series will be broadcast on ESPN Radio (1280 AM and 101.7 FM) with Zachary Anderson-Yoxsimer providing the play-by-play. Audio and video streams will be provided for Saturday's contest. Links for live stats and audio and video streams are available on the baseball schedule page at www.GoPoly.com.
After a 1-3 start to the 2021 season, Cal Poly won 10 of 13 games, including series wins over USC and then-No. 6 UCLA. The Mustangs also opened Big West play by taking three of four games at CSUN, improving to 11-6 overall. Over the next seven weeks, however, Cal Poly lost 18 of 27 contests, losing conference series against UC San Diego, UC Irvine, UC Santa Barbara and CSU Bakersfield and splitting four-game series versus Long Beach State and UC Riverside.
The Mustangs ended the slide by sweeping 30-time conference champion Cal State Fullerton for just the second time in 48 years, batting .425 for the series, then winning three of four contests at UC Davis and closing out the 2021 season by sweeping a four-game series at home versus Hawai'i.
Washington is coming off a 20-30 campaign, its first losing season since 2014, and 11th-place finish in the Pac-12. In 2018, the Huskies qualified for the College World Series for the first time in program history, winning a regional at Coastal Carolina and a super regional at Cal State Fullerton. They lost to Mississippi State, which won last year's College World Series title, and Oregon State.
Washington claimed five Pac-10 North titles in a seven-year stretch from 1992-98 and have qualified for 11 NCAA regionals.
The Huskies return 17 letter winners, including six position starters who started at least 18 games in 2021, but only four pitchers. The top two hitters return — designated hitter Will Simpson (.310, seven home runs, 35 RBIs in 2021) and third baseman Michael Snyder (.292) — while the four returning pitchers combined for just 90 of Washington's 450 innings pitched and eight of the 50 starts in 2021.
Other returnees are outfielders Cole Miller (.239, 14 RBIs) and Preston Viltz (.222, six RBIs), first baseman Michael Brown (.210, four home runs, 10 RBIs) and infielder Dalton Chandler (.179, nine RBIs). The pitching corps is paced by right-hander Jack Enger (2-1, 4.01 ERA, 21 strikeouts over 24 2/3 innings).
Two players on Washington's 2022 roster played on the 2018 team that qualified for the College World Series. Catcher Brandon Leitgeb played seven games that year and Enger pitched in two contests. Leitgeb played in just six games with two starts last year, going 1-for-10 at the plate.
Cal Poly has a 15-10 advantage in the all-time series against Washington dating back to 1969. The Huskies swept the Mustangs in a three-game 2019 series at Husky Ballpark by scores of 9-3, 11-7 and 5-0. Cal Poly hit just .214 in that series and surrendered 7.88 earned runs per game. Connor Gurnik, Nick DiCarlo and Elijah Greene each produced four hits and one RBI for the Mustangs.
Cal Poly beat the Huskies twice in a three-game series at Baggett Stadium in 2012 and duplicated the feat in 2013 at Seattle. Cal Poly is 14-10 against Washington since the Mustangs moved to Division I prior to the 1995 season. Larry Lee is 12-9 against Washington while Lindsay Meggs is 5-4 against Cal Poly.
Meggs (13th season at Washington (319-293-1), 29th season overall (934-600-5), UCLA '85) was head coach at Indiana State for three seasons before he was hired as Washington's head coach prior to the 2010 season. He was head coach at Chico State for 13 seasons, where he won NCAA Division II national championships in 1997 and 1999, and also was head coach at Long Beach City College and Oxnard College.
Meggs is a graduate of Saratoga High School and played four seasons as the starting third baseman at UCLA. He hired former Cal Poly pitching coach Jason Kelly to be his pitching coach following the 2012 season. They worked together at Chico State. Kelly, the 2018 National Assistant Coach of the Year, was pitching coach at Arizona State from 2019-21 before being hired at LSU last summer.
In 2020, Meggs became the third Washington coach to reach 300 wins, joining Ken Knutson (559) and Bob MacDonald (384). A total of 42 Huskies have been drafted in Megg's first 12 seasons at Washington, a program that has produced such Major Leaguers as pitcher Tim Lincecum (Giants and Angels), catcher Sammy White (Red Sox, Braves and Phillies), first baseman Jake Lamb (Diamondbacks, Athletics, White Sox, Blue Jays) and third baseman Mike Blowers (Yankees, Mariners, Dodgers, Athletics).
Lee welcomes back 22 lettermen off last year's squad, including seven position starters and all but three pitchers. The 2022 Mustang roster, bolstered by the addition of three transfers from Boise State and one from Washington State a year ago, has added a pair of graduate students this spring in infielder Brett Borgogno (Cal State Fullerton and Louisiana-Lafayette) and outfielder John Lagattuta (Cal) along with utility player Matthias Haas, a transfer from Brown.
Topping the list of returnees is five-time 2021 All-American Brooks Lee, a preseason All-American five times as well this spring. Projected to be a top-five draft pick in July, Lee hit a team-leading .342 with 10 home runs, 57 RBIs and a school-record 27 doubles as a redshirt freshman in 2021 en route to Big West Co-Field Player of the Year and Co-Freshman Field Player of the Year honors.
The group of returnees also includes designated hitter Matt Lopez, third baseman Tate Samuelson, first baseman Joe Yorke, second baseman Nick Marinconz, utility player Taison Corio and pitchers Drew Thorpe, Travis Weston, Bryce Warrecker, Kyle Scott and Dylan Villalobos, among several others.
The entire infield is back as Yorke made 54 starts at first base, Marinconz (27) and Corio (23) combined for 50 starts at second base, Lee started 54 games at shortstop and Samuelson was in the starting lineup 53 times at third base.
Lopez was second on the team in hitting at .341 with 26 RBIs in 39 games.
The outfield is a work in progress with the loss of Cole Cabrera in center field, Sam Biller in left and Nick DiCarlo in right. Reagan Doss, who started 21 games in the outfield last year and hit .258 with six doubles and 13 RBIs in 37 games, replaces Cabrera in center field. A pair of catchers lead the depth chart in left field — Ryan Stafford of Folsom High School and returnee Collin Villegas — while Haas of Oakland's Bishop O'Dowd High School and Brown and Lagattuta of Davis Senior High School and Cal likely will share duties in right field. Villegas and Stafford are listed 1-2 behind the plate.
On the mound Drew Thorpe was 6-1 with a 3.15 ERA in home games last spring, finishing with a 6-6 mark and 3.79 ERA. He led the squad in strikeouts with 104, which is No. 10 all-time in the Cal Poly record book, and compiled double-digit strikeouts three times in 2021. Travis Weston (5-6, 3.28 ERA) earned three complete games, the most by a Mustang pitcher since Joey Wagman also collected three complete games in 2013. Weston was a starter in Saturday doubleheaders.
Thorpe and Weston will start Friday and Saturday, respectively, for the second year in a row. Sophomore Kaden Sheedy (1-2, 5.40 ERA in 2021) gets the nod Sunday with freshman right-hander Steven Brooks of Cosumnes Oaks High School in Elk Grove, Calif., expected to start in midweek games. Sheedy made four starts in the final six weeks of the 2021 season, including a complete-game three-hitter with six strikeouts in the series finale at UC Davis.
Washington's pitching rotation for the weekend series consists of one returnee and a pair of community college transfers.
Friday's starter is Butte CC transfer Bryce Armstrong (7-0, 2.35 ERA in 2021) while Saturday's starter is Adam Bloebaum (2-5, 4.15 ERA at UW in 2021), both southpaws. Taking the mound Sunday will be right-hander Jared Engman (1-0, 4.85 ERA at Tacoma CC in 2021).
The Mustangs have a combined 331-277 conference record (.545 winning percentage) in 24 years as a member of the Big West, the last 19 under Lee. Cal Poly has had just three losing seasons since 2000 and has reached the 30-win mark 13 times this century, including 2021. The Mustangs have won 208 of their last 303 home games for a 68.6 winning percentage.
Since and including 2011, Cal Poly is the only Big West team to have a winning or .500 overall record each year (excluding the pandemic-shortened 2020 season). Also since 2011, Cal Poly is the only Big West team to finish at least fourth or higher every year, including one first place, five seconds, one third and three fourths.
Since 2011, Lee guided the Mustangs to wins in 58 of 91 Big West series with a pair of 2-2 splits for a 63.4 winning percentage. The Mustangs won seven of eight conference series in both 2014 and 2017. Cal Poly is the only Big West team to have a winning overall record in each full season since 2011 and the Mustangs are the only Big West team to finish fourth place or higher every year. Since 2003, Cal Poly has finished below fourth place only twice.
Cal Poly has had 19 MLB draft picks in the top 10 rounds since and including 2011. Only Cal State Fullerton has had more with 22. The next tier are three teams with a total of 10 in that time span. Cal Poly has had a total of 34 top-10 round MLB draft picks in the last 18 years.
Since 2012, Cal Poly has had eight Division 1 All-Americans. Also, since 2003, Cal Poly has had 11 players make it to the Major Leagues. In the rest of the history of the program, there were nine to have made it to The Show.
Cal Poly is seventh among 25 California Division I schools and 10th in the West Region (47 schools) with 299 wins over last nine years (not counting 2020).
Lee (577-455-2) surpassed Fresno State's Bob Bennett for the Big West record for overall wins with the 2-1 series-opening win at USC in February 2021. During the UC Davis series in 2019, Lee eclipsed Cal Poly alum and former Long Beach State head coach Dave Snow with his 219th conference win. Snow guided the Dirtbags to 218 Big West wins from 1989-2001.
Lee reached the 500-victory milestone on April 20, 2018, with a 5-4 triumph over Long Beach State. He earned 460 wins in 16 seasons at Cuesta College and notched his 460th Mustang victory on March 13, 2017 against Gonzaga and his 1,000th career victory with a 3-0 triumph at UC Santa Barbara on May 23, 2019. He currently has a 1,037-696-5 record over 35 seasons as a head coach and coached his 1,000th game as Cal Poly's head coach on April 1, 2021, a 10-1 win over UC San Diego.
Next week, Cal Poly hosts Fresno State for a single game Tuesday at 6 p.m., then hits the road for a three-game weekend series at Missouri State (Friday at 1 p.m., Saturday at noon and Sunday at 11 a.m. Pacific) in Springfield, MO.
