No. 8 Mustangs Open 2022 Season Saturday in Tallahassee

Saturday, February 26

Tallahassee, FL

5 A.M.

University of North Florida

Photo by: NCAA Photos via Getty Images

No. 8 Mustangs Open 2022 Season Saturday in Tallahassee

2/22/2022 1:28:00 PM | Beach Volleyball

SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. — Coming off a historic season for the program in 2021, the Cal Poly beach volleyball team, ranked eighth in the AVCA Preseason Poll, will begin its 2022 season Saturday in Tallahassee, Fla. at the FSU Beach Bash. The No. 8 Mustangs will be thrown into the gauntlet immediately this weekend as they will face two teams ranked in the top-10 of the AVCA Preseason Poll. Cal Poly will open its season Saturday at 8 a.m. ET (5 a.m. PT) against North Florida followed by a match against No. 3 Florida State at 4:45 ET (1:45 PT). The Mustangs will be seeking their first ever win against both programs as this will be the first time facing the Ospreys while they are 0-5 all-time against the Seminoles. Then on Sunday, the Mustangs will take on the University of Tampa at 8 a.m. ET (5 a.m. PT) followed by No. 6 TCU at 10:30 a.m. ET (7:30 a.m. PT) to wrap up the opening weekend. Cal Poly is 3-0 all-time against the Spartans and 3-2 against the Horned Frogs, winning the last three matches. Live stats will be available for fans to follow all four matches this weekend. Links for those can be found on the schedule page. For the fourth consecutive year, Cal Poly heads into the start of the season ranked inside the top-10 of the AVCA Preseason Poll. This comes after finishing with a 24-11 record last season, winning the Big West for the second straight time, making the NCAA Championships for the second straight time, and making history by winning the program's first NCAA Championships match after a 3-2 win over Stanford. Under two-time Big West Coach of the Year Todd Rogers, who enters his seventh season at the helm of the Mustangs, Cal Poly returns 16 players from last year's team while welcoming in five newcomers that include three true freshmen and a pair of transfers. Despite losing three players from last year's team that earned Big West All-Conference honors, including Emily Sonny and Macy Gordon who were named Big West Pair of the Year and AVCA First Team All-Americans, they return five All-Big West honorees in Tia Miric, Mariah Whalen, Jayelin Lombard, Sam Strah, and Eleonore Johansen. Last year, Miric and Whalen earned First Team All-Conference honors after they finished with a 16-8 record as Cal Poly's No. 3 pairing. They ended the season on an eight-match winning streak, including getting a win against Stanford in the NCAA Championships. Lombard also earned First Team All-Conference honors last year after partnering with Amy Ozee, now Cal Poly's volunteer assistant coach, going 22-12 this season from the No. 2 spot in the lineup, the second-most wins on the team. Strah and Johansen both return after they garnered Honorable Mention All-Conference honors last season, going 12-9 from primarily the No. 4 spot in the lineup. They also had a win against Stanford in the NCAA Championships in Cal Poly's victory over the Cardinal. After its opening weekend in Tallahassee, Cal Poly will go down to Los Angeles the next weekend for another set of tough matches as the Mustangs will face Stanford, Long Beach State, UCLA, and GCU who are all ranked in the top-15 of the AVCA Preseason Poll. The Mustangs will then host the first of their four events this season in San Luis Obispo at Swanson Beach Volleyball Complex. March 11-12, Cal Poly will play host to San Jose State, LMU, Washington, and Arizona State. That will be followed by another set of home matches March 20-21 when the Mustangs host Southern Mississippi, Houston Baptist, Pepperdine, Boise State, Cal, and Arizona at Swanson Beach Volleyball Complex. The weekend of March 25-26, Cal Poly will head to Long Beach to play all six other Big West teams before heading up to Palo Alto to April 2-3 where they will face Santa Clara, Stanford, Saint Mary's and UC Davis. That will lead into the third annual Center of Effort Beach Volleyball Challenge, one of the premier collegiate beach volleyball events in the country, at Swanson Beach Volleyball Complex in San Luis Obispo. On April 15-16, the Mustangs will host four of the top teams in the country in USC, Florida State, UCLA, and LMU. Cal Poly will then head to Salt Lake City for the final weekend of the regular season April 22-23 before hosting the Big West Tournament at Swanson Beach Volleyball Complex April 29-30. The Mustangs will be looking to three-peat as Big West champions. This year's NCAA Championships, which has been expanded from eight teams to 16 teams, will once again take place in Gulf Shores, Ala. from May 6-8. Cal Poly will be looking to make it there again for the third straight time.