Cal State Fullerton
Stage Set for Matchup with Cal State Fullerton at Big West Championship
5/21/2025 5:30:00 PM | Baseball
SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. — For the first time since 1998, the Big West Championship will occur with five teams vying for the conference title and an automatic bid to the NCAA Regionals.
The Mustangs finished the regular season in second place with an overall record of 37-16 and nearly tied UC Irvine as co-champions, just one game behind in the standings (23-7) after last weekend’s sweep over UC Riverside.
Cal Poly’s 37 overall wins are the program’s best since 2022, and its 23 wins in conference are the program’s highest mark in the Division I era. The Mustangs will be looking to capture their second Big West title ever, the last one coming in 2014, when Cal Poly hosted an NCAA Regional.
The action from Goodwin Field in Fullerton, Calif., begins at Noon on Wednesday, May 21, with a single-elimination game between the No. 4 and No. 5 seeds. The remaining four teams will compete in a double-elimination format beginning on Thursday, May 22, with three more games contested on Friday, May 23. The championship will be at 3 p.m. on Saturday, May 24, with a national postseason berth on the line. The "if necessary" finale rematch will take place on May 25. (BigWest.org)
Support the two-seed Mustangs in the Big West Championship in Fullerton!
— Cal Poly Baseball (@CalPolyBSB) May 21, 2025
Before the game, join fellow Cal Poly supporters at BIGS Fullerton for a no-host social. No RSVP required - we hope to see you there!
Visit https://t.co/9bdAiicOiN for more info and tickets!#RideHigh pic.twitter.com/sxxgVQlI7F
Previously in Mustang Baseball
The Mustangs swept their final regular season series against UC Riverside (14-9, 6-5, 16-7) and have won nine of their last ten after dropping four straight to UC Irvine and Santa Clara.
Led by two home runs from Alejandro Garza, seven Mustangs finished with multiple hits and four with multiple RBIs as Cal Poly exploded for a 14-9 series-opening victory over UC Riverside at Baggett Stadium.
Game two saw a much closer result, but junior catcher Jack Collins produced his second walk-off hit of the 2025 season, a single down the right-field line with two outs in the ninth inning, as Cal Poly escaped with a 6-5 nailbiter.
Dylan Kordic, after a two-home run inning against San Jose State earlier this season, produced another historic effort by tying a school record 8 RBIs during game three against UC Riverside. Half of Kordic’s runs came from his fifth-inning grand slam, and he contributed to half of the game’s total runs in the 16-7 romp.
Looking at the season as a whole, Cal Poly has won 36 of its last 47 games after a 1-5 start and took eight of ten Big West series this year, duplicating last year’s mark in conference play. At one point, the Mustangs also won 12 consecutive games on the road, the longest such streak in the nation at the time.
Head Coach Larry Lee earned his 700th career Cal Poly win on May 3 at Cal State Bakersfield. He remains the Big West’s winningest coach with a 707-549-2 career mark. Including his 16 seasons as head coach at Cuesta College, Lee is 1,167-790-5 in 39 seasons.
Mustangs Riding High
Ryan Fenn (13), Alejandro Garza (12), and Casey Murray Jr. (10) all have double-digit hit streaks coming into the week. Garza will be looking to make history for the Mustangs as his 31 multi-hit games are tied for the third-most in the program's D1 history, just three away from tying Scott Kidd’s record 34 set in 1997.
Jack Collins was recently named a Buster Posey Award semifinalist, one of just 13 honorees in Division I baseball. Coming into the Big West Championship, Collins is second in the Big West for RBIs (56) and runners caught stealing (18) and fourth in home runs (12) and doubles (16).
Eight Mustangs were honored by the Big West. Four earned All-Big West First Team honors this season (Daudet, Fenn, Garza, Naess), three were second team nods (Castellon, Collins, Torres), and one received an honorable mention (Murray Jr.).
Dylan Kordic is coming off a regular season finale where he tied a school record with eight RBIs last Saturday against UCR with a grand slam, a two-run double, an RBI single, and a sacrifice fly.
Alejandro Garza earned All-Big West First Team honors on Tuesday, as his 83 regular-season hits are currently 21st in Division I baseball, and his 31 multi-hit games are tied for the third-most in the program's D1 history. He also finished the regular season second-best on the team for batting average (.366), RBIs (48), and doubles (16) while leading in runs (52).
Dante Vachini is coming off arguably his best series of the season, going 10-for-14 (.714) against the Highlanders. Including Vachini, eight Mustangs tallied multiple RBIs through the series.
Griffin Naess is set to face off against Cal State Fullerton’s Mikiah Negrete on Thursday. Naess is also coming off a first-team nod, putting together a 6-2 record through 14 starts this season as Cal Poly’s game-one ace.
Naess led the team with 81.1 innings pitched and led starters with a 3.65 ERA. He also posted seven quality starts (at least 6.0 IP and three or fewer earned runs), and in six of those allowed one run or less.
Previewing Cal State Fullerton
Two-seed Cal Poly’s first matchup of the tournament was decided mid-series last weekend, with three-seed Cal State Fullerton, the hosts of the Big West Championship, set to be the Mustangs’ opening opponent.
Following Cal Poly’s series sweep over Fullerton earlier this season, the Mustangs narrowly trail 57-74 in the all-time series but have taken four of the last five series, including three sweeps (2021, 2022, 2025).
When Cal Poly opened the 2025 conference slate against Cal State Fullerton, the Mustangs scored double-digits in all three games, but the battle was fierce in every matchup (10-9, 11-8, 10-4) with Cal Poly leading the scoring differential by just four runs in the first two matchups.
Dylan Knowles walked off the first game with an 11th-inning RBI single in the series opener, Cal Poly roared back from a five-run hole in the fourth to take game two, and then Castellon, Daudet, and Garza wrapped up the series sweep with multiple RBIs in the finale.
Following that sweep, the Titans earned a power-4 win against USC before going on an eight-game win streak in the latter half of March. Cal State Fullerton only lost one conference series, to Hawai’i, the rest of the way en route to securing its three-seed fate after beating UC Irvine in the regular season’s last series.
The Titans are a similar squad to the Mustangs in that no problem scoring at-will and in large spurts. Offensively, they are primarily led by Maddox Latta (.361 AVG, 69 H, 15 2B), Big West Freshman Field Player of the Year Carter Johnstone (.341 AVG, 70 H), Matthew Bardowell (.327 AVG, 64 H, 51 RBI), Eli Lopez (.313 AVG, 62 H), and slugger Andrew Kirchner (.307 AVG, 71 H, 11 HR, 69 RBI).
Defensively, starting pitching has been a trouble point with only Mikiah Negrete (5.42 ERA, 75 SO) as the consistent starter (14 APP-14 GS) week-over-week. Otherwise, the Titans have enjoyed some of the best bullpen work in the conference with expert closer Andrew Wright (1.59 ERA, 10 SV), Ryan Seo (2.35 ERA), and Ryan Faulks (28 APP, 2.88 ERA) highlighting the bunch.
