Cal Poly Softball Marks 50th Anniversary Saturday Afternoon
4/11/2025 11:15:00 AM | General, Softball
Above, Cal Poly's 1975 inaugural team.
Back row: Mary Stallard (head coach), Sherry Fertitta Ardito, Valerie Felice, Janet Pletcher, Vickie Douglas.
Middle row: Barb Brose, LeeAnn Britt, Kim Graham, Kathy Pollock, Melanie Culver.
Front row: Yvonne Carrillo, Kathy Bierman, Jo Gilbert, Denni Lopez Sacco.
SAN LUIS OBISPO – “I do remember [that UC Santa Barbara game]. It was nice weather that day,” said Kathy Pollack, a second baseman for Cal Poly’s inaugural 1975 softball team.
Saturday, April 12 marks 50 years – to the day – since the Cal Poly softball program played its first intercollegiate varsity game as the Mustangs handed future rival UC Santa Barbara a 16-9 defeat.
Cal Poly played 13 games across four tournaments that inaugural 1975 season under head coach and physical education instructor Mary Stallard – the fewest games in any of the program’s 51 years. There was no league – Cal Poly wouldn’t join the Southern California Athletic Conference until 1979 – but the Mustangs finished 10-3 that initial 1975 season against a mix of current NCAA Division I, II and III programs and junior college sides.
Saturday, Cal Poly plays game No. 2,318 when opening a three-game series at UC Riverside. The series will be streamed live on ESPN+ and live stats will be available on every device. The Mustangs, who can employ up to 12 full scholarships, will take the field in one of three different Adidas-sponsored uniforms while current head coach Jenny Condon will become the first female coach in Big West history to manage 1,000 career games.
A lot has changed.
Mustang Memorial Field at Spanos Stadium – home to Cal Poly’s football and soccer programs – has served as the site of numerous Cal Poly athletics contests, university graduations, community-sponsored events and even an annual rodeo. In the spring of 1975 – Mustang Stadium, as it was known before a 2006 renovation – served as one of the softball program’s practice fields. Home games, to begin, were played at nearby city-administered Santa Rosa Park.
“Softball, at the time, was a rec sport activity,” said Pollock, who started at second base for the Mustangs in that initial 1975 game versus UC Santa Barbara. “We didn’t have organized leagues and we received our money from [ASI, which still oversees Cal Poly’s club sport programs]. We had no real uniforms; we would use the basketball team uniforms. We used school equipment. We used what they had from gym classes and a lot of people brought their own gloves and shoes. There were no tryouts or scholarships; nothing like that.”
Perspectives, however, were changing. The 1972 federal implementation of Title IX enacted the prohibition of sex-based discrimination in schools and education programs that received governmental funding, establishing new foundations for the future of women’s athletics in the United States.
Denni Lopez, a senior outfielder for the 1975 team, served as the president of the Cal Poly women’s recreation association and attended ASI meetings to help seek funding for not just softball, but women’s athletics in general.
“It turned out to be the beginning of funding for Cal Poly women’s sports for years to come,” Lopez said. “We were given advice from coaches and administrators (on how to approach funding), but we had to go make the presentations. This was all new to us. We didn’t exactly know how to fight for funding. We just knew that we were able to ask because of Title IX.
“[After Title IX] passed, we were just trying to understand the law itself. You know, we’re busy going to college and we’re trying to understand a government policy. I’d read it over and over again and it seemed simple itself, but it wasn’t so easy to implement. But, we’re going to these ASI funding meetings and trying to plead our case.”
On Saturday, April 12, Cal Poly softball celebrates the 50th anniversary of the program's first intercollegiate varsity game!#RideHigh pic.twitter.com/OzKF0DJj8x
— Cal Poly Softball (@CalPolySoftball) April 11, 2025
Sherry (née Fertitta) Ardito, a freshman shortstop on the 1975 team, recalls attending ASI funding meetings alongside Lopez.
“It was eye opening. Women’s sports were not funded very well at all then and there were many times we drove our own cars to get to tournaments,” said Ardito, who also played basketball at Cal Poly. “Of course, we paid for our own meals. When the funding was there for vans, our trainer or manager would drive.
“I was just an athlete. I went to Cal Poly to major in physical education and I wanted to play sports. We played because hey, there’s a notice up – do you want to play for the women’s softball team? Come to this meeting or practice at this time and go from there. We all played for the love of the game. There were no scholarships; there was nothing to pay for our education.”
Pollock though could see the changes coming.
“[Title IX] came into effect during my years [at Cal Poly] and that got everyone encouraged that things are going to develop and that we wouldn’t have to go to [ASI] and ask for money and that there would be a change in philosophy,” Pollock said. “As a PE major, we took a class about the impact of Title IX and (softball coach) Mary Stallard was the teacher for it. You could see the changes coming along as we discussed [topics in class].”
A press released issued from Cal Poly’s sports information department and dated April 9, 1975 heralded that “Cal Poly will launch its women’s intercollegiate softball program on Saturday with a 1 p.m. doubleheader at home against U.C. Santa Barbara (sic).”
Just one matchup eventually took place that afternoon – “[That first year], the coach and the administrators had to find out how we could complete, who we could play,” Lopez said – but Cal Poly would be an immediate success on the field with winning records in four of the first five varsity seasons.
As Cal Poly softball celebrates its 50th anniversary Saturday, April 12, a look back at the accomplishments from the program's first half-century!#RideHigh pic.twitter.com/bIIn0pEZuY
— Cal Poly Softball (@CalPolySoftball) April 11, 2025
The Mustangs made their postseason debut in just their second year, taking third place at the 1976 Western Association of Intercollegiate Athletics Regional Tournament. By 1979, Cal Poly had joined the Southern California Athletic Conference and qualified for the AIAW Western Regionals, a forerunner of the NCAA Tournament. The 1982 season brought Cal Poly’s first year of NCAA participation and, in 1985, the program’s first NCAA Tournament appearance. Cal Poly made its transition to Division I ahead of the 1995 season with the Mustangs eventually joining the Big West in 1997.
Since Pollack, Lopez and Ardito debuted for the inaugural 1975 team, more than 350 players have suited up for Mustangs.
Nine Mustangs – starting with Kecia Gorman, Lisa Houk and Jill Hancock in 1986 – have been named as NFCA All-Americans. Cal Poly players have earned, collectively, 41 NFCA and NCAA All-Region honors and 172 all-conference accolades. Christy Punches, another All-America selection, still owns Cal Poly’s single season batting record and – 32 years later – remains fifth in California Collegiate Athletic Association history after hitting .480 in 1993.
Four players – Desarie Knipfer (2003), Lisa Modglin (2015), Jill Hancock (2022) and Sierra Hyland (2024) – have been enshrined in the athletics department’s hall of fame. Modglin remains the Big West’s single season batting leader with a .476 mark in 2007. Knipfer, ranked third in Big West history with 798 strikeouts, has her No. 8 jersey retired at Bob Janssen Field. Hyland – the Big West’s all-time strikeout leader – became the softball program’s first Olympian when representing the Mexico Women’s National Team at the 2020 Tokyo Games.
Beginning with Stallard in 1975, the program has enjoyed eight head coaches, but just two since 1989 with Lisa Boyer (1989-2004) and Jenny Condon (2005-present) accounting for 78 percent of the program’s 1,194 all-time wins.
Fifty years after her varsity debut, Pollock still attends the program’s annual alumni game: “I always joke that if I got to the plate now, I’d be blown away by the pitch coming in.”
Added Ardito, “I wish I could play in today’s realm with the funding and all of the great coaches that are out there. Multiple coaches! We had one coach and that was it. It was all within ourselves to get better and compete. And we did OK. We did good with what we had. But yes, there’s a feeling that we were the start of all of this.”
Lopez, meanwhile, sums up Cal Poly’s pioneering team with one sentence: “Fifty years ago, the 1975 inaugural team threw the first pitch into the future of Mustang softball.”
