Cal Poly Wraps Up 2022 Season with Three-Game Series at Hawai'i

Thursday, May 26

Honolulu, HI

9:35 p.m.

Hawai'i

Joe Yorke celebrates home run in dugout.

Cal Poly first baseman Joe Yorke wears the home run chain in recent game. Yorke hit .489 with eight doubles, three home runs and 24 RBIs during his 20-game hitting streak, lifting his average for the season 105 points.

Photo by: Photo by Connor Lau

Cal Poly Wraps Up 2022 Season with Three-Game Series at Hawai'i

5/24/2022 1:49:00 PM | Baseball

WEEKLY NOTES: CAL POLY | HAWAI'I | BIG WEST
AUDIO STREAM -- THURSDAY | FRIDAY | SATURDAY
VIDEO STREAM -- THURSDAY | FRIDAY | SATURDAY
LIVE STATS -- THURSDAY | FRIDAY | SATURDAY
MUSTANG INSIDER PODCAST (JOE YORKE) | BROOKS LEE NAMED BIG WEST FIELD PLAYER OF THE WEEK | THORPE, LEE SEMIFINALISTS FOR GOLDEN SPIKES AWARD

SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. -- Cal Poly (35-20, 20-7 Big West), which has won 11 straight games with series sweeps against CSU Bakersfield, Cal State Fullerton and UC Davis along with a pair of midweek victories versus Pepperdine, plays its final three games of the 2022 season this weekend, visiting Hawai'i (27-22, 18-9 Big West) for a Big West Conference series inside Les Murakami Stadium (cap.: 4,312).

First pitches are set for 9:35 p.m. Thursday and Friday and 4:05 p.m. Saturday (all times Pacific). All three games will be broadcast on ESPN+ and the series also will be aired on ESPN Radio (1280 AM and 101.7 FM) with Chris Sylvester calling the play-by-play. Links for video and audio streams as well as live stats are available on the baseball schedule page at www.GoPoly.com.

The Mustangs (20-7), ranked No. 18 by Collegiate Baseball this week, are two games ahead of Hawai'i (18-9) in the battle for second place in the Big West and need just one win to clinch second place for the fourth time in the last five full seasons. UC Santa Barbara (24-3) clinched the Big West title outright by sweeping UC Riverside at home last weekend.

After a 7-9 start, Cal Poly put together five- and six-game winning streaks, moving 10 games above the .500 mark for the first time since the 2016 season by taking two of three games in back-to-back Big West series on the road at UC Irvine and UC Riverside.

The Mustangs slipped into third place in the Big West following 10-7 (11 innings), 8-3 and 7-3 losses to No. 13 UC Santa Barbara at home on April 29-May 1, but climbed back into second place by sweeping CSU Bakersfield at home and Cal State Fullerton on the road. Last weekend, Cal Poly extended its winning streak to 11 — the longest since the Big West championship 2014 squad won 12 straight — with 11-0, 7-0 and 6-3 victories over UC Davis. Brooks Lee went 7-for-13 with two doubles, three home runs and six RBIs in the series en route to Big West Field Player of the Week honors for the second time this season. Matt Lopez was 6-for-10 with seven RBIs while Ryan Stafford went 5-for-11 with three RBIs as Cal Poly hit .358 in the series, outscored the Aggies 24-3 and compiled a 0.67 staff ERA.

With four new coaches and 13 new players on its 33-man roster, Hawai'i has recovered from an 8-16 start by winning eight straight games and 19 of 24, starting with a 13-9 triumph over UC Santa Barbara in the final game of an early April series in California. The Rainbow Warriors swept UC Riverside and CSU Bakersfield and won series versus UC Davis, Cal State Fullerton, UNLV and CSUN before sweeping UC San Diego last weekend back in California by scores of 7-4, 9-5 and 4-0. Hawai'i had a five-game winning streak snapped Monday night at California Baptist, 6-4.

Hawai'i is hitting .272 as a team with 82 doubles, four triples and 32 home runs, scoring 298 runs in its 49 games so far. The Rainbow Warriors are second in the Big West in sacrifice bunts (36) and stolen bases (56) and third in fielding percentage (.973), batters hit by their pitchers (78), on-base percentage (.376), scoring (6.1 runs per game) and shutouts (3). The pitching staff has compiled a 4.71 ERA with 422 strikeouts over 438 innings, and Hawai'i has committed 50 errors in 49 games.

Hawai'i is coming off a 24-26 campaign, finishing eighth in the Big West at 16-24. Hawai'i played its first Big West season in baseball in 2013 after 33 years in the Western Athletic Conference, claiming titles in 1991, 1992 and 2011 and the tournament crown in 2010. Cal Poly also played in the WAC in 1995 and 1996 before joining the Big West. The Rainbow Warriors reached the College World Series in 1980, finishing second, and have made 13 NCAA regional appearances, the last in 2010.

Coached by Rich Hill (first season at Hawai'i (27-22), 37th year overall (1,106-760-4), Cal Lutheran '84), the Rainbow Warriors returned 22 letter winners from last year's squad, including 11 position starters and nine pitchers. Top returnees include utility player Jacob Igawa (.321, 23 RBIs in 2021), outfielder Scotty Scott (.297, 14 RBIs) and catcher Jared Quandt (.310). Topping the list of returning pitchers are right-handers Cade Halemanu (5-2, 3.60 ERA in 2021) and Buddie Pindel (3-2, 3.43 ERA) along with southpaw Austin Teixeira (3-2, 4.06).

Shortstop Jordan Donahue tops all Hawai'i hitters with a .322 average, six doubles and 18 RBIs, while second baseman Stone Miyao is hitting .296 with eight doubles and 35 RBIs. Utility player Dallas Duarte sports a .293 average with 10 doubles and 26 RBIs, right fielder Matt Wong .286 with 11 doubles, five home runs and 35 RBIs and former Cal Poly center fielder Cole Cabrera .281 with eight doubles, four home runs and 33 RBIs along with 14 steals in 16 attempts.

The pitching staff is paced by Blaze Koali'i Pontes (5-0, 3.05 ERA), Halemanu (3-5, 4.96 ERA) and Andy Archer (2-5, 5.40 ERA), all right-handers. The closer is righty Dalton Renee (4-2, 3.79 ERA, six saves).

Cal Poly has a 27-11 advantage over Hawai'i in the series dating back to 1995, sweeping a four-game series at Baggett Stadium to close out the 2021 season. Cal Poly is 20-5 against Hawai'i since the Rainbow Warriors joined the Big West in 2013, including a 13-3 mark at home and 7-2 in Honolulu. The Mustangs have won all eight series, including sweeps in 2014, 2015 and 2021. Cal Poly won two of three games at home in 2019 as well as in Manoa in 2018. Larry Lee is 20-5 against Hawai'i while Rich Hill is 17-11 against Cal Poly, all while he was head coach at San Diego.

Among the 17 former Rainbow Warriors who made it to the Major Leagues are Kolten Wong, Josh Rojas and Glenn Braggs.

Hill was head coach at San Diego for 23 seasons (1999-2021), guiding the Toreros to nine NCAA postseason appearances and seven West Coast Conference championships, before he was named to replace Mike Trapasso as head coach at Hawai'i in June 2021. Also a head coach at San Francisco from 1994-98 and his alma mater, Cal Lutheran (1988-93), Hill has won 1,106 games in nearly 37 years as a head coach at the college level. Hill played baseball at San Diego State and Cal Lutheran before spending one year in the St. Louis Cardinals minor league system.

Lee welcomed 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, 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. As the team's designated hitter, Lopez was second on the team in hitting at .341 with 26 RBIs in 39 games.

The outfield has been a season-long 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. Stafford has made 42 starts behind the plate and Villegas 13 with 30 additional starts in the outfield.

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) got the nod for the first four Sunday games this season with freshman right-hander Steven Brooks of Cosumnes Oaks High School in Elk Grove, Calif., starting the midweek contests. 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.

So far this season, Lee leads all Mustang hitters with a .374 mark, third in the Big West, which includes 24 doubles, a triple, 15 home runs and 54 RBIs. He is on pace to surpass his own school doubles record (27) set last year as well as his 57 total RBIs in 2021, and had a career-long 19-game hitting streak snapped by Long Beach State eight weeks ago. With a two-run home run Sunday, Lee homered in all four games last week and moved into a tie for fifth place with Grant Desme (2007) and Luke Yoder (2010) in Cal Poly's record book for home runs in a single season. Lee also has 25 home runs in his Mustang career, fifth all-time at Cal Poly.

Yorke is hitting .352 with 12 doubles, four home runs, 46 RBIs and a 20-game hitting streak that was snapped Sunday by UC Davis. The Mustang first baseman produced a pair of five-hit games a four-hit contest and a quartet of three-hit games during his hitting streak, going 45-for-92 (.489) with eight doubles, three home runs and 24 RBIs, lifting his average for the season 105 points. He has reached base safely in 29 consecutive games.

Sophomore second baseman Nick Marinconz sports a .319 average with nine doubles, a home run and 16 RBIs while Stafford is hitting .328 with 16 doubles, three home runs and 33 RBIs. Matt Lopez has a .299 average with nine doubles, four home runs and 24 RBIs while Collin Villegas is hitting .289 with 19 doubles, two triples, four home runs and 40 RBIs.

During the current winning streak, Yorke is 27-for-50 (.540) with seven doubles, two home runs and 19 RBIs while Stafford has gone 24-for-46 (.522) with three doubles and 16 RBIs. Lee is hitting .408 (20-for-49) with five doubles, six home runs and 14 RBIs, with Lopez going 15-for-37 (.405) with three doubles, two home runs and 10 RBIs.

The Mustangs have hit .365 during the streak, outscoring the opposition 99-25, with just eight errors in 11 games while the pitching staff has put together a 1.82 ERA with 117 strikeouts over 99 innings and a .232 opponents batting average.

Stafford has played 11 games since he was dropped from the leadoff spot to the fourth and fifth holes in the lineup and has responded with an 11-game hitting streak, including eight multiple-hit games, and bumping his average up 48 points.

With three games to go in the regular season, Samuelson has already broken school records for most games played (233) and at-bats (899) in a career and is No. 2 in hits (246), tied for No. 2 in RBIs (158) and fifth in hit by pitches (29). The Super Senior is six shy of the hits record set by Jimmy Allen from 2011-14 and two short of the RBI mark held by Steve Wood (1998-2000).

Lee (20th season, 612-475-2, Pepperdine '83) reached the 600-victory milestone April 22 with a 9-3 nod over UC Riverside. 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 1,072-715-5 record over 35-plus 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.

The 16 regional hosts will be announced Sunday, with the 64-team NCAA regional field to be revealed Monday at 9 a.m. on ESPN2.