Arizona
Champion Mustangs Prepare for Fourth Division I Regional Appearance
5/28/2025 9:30:00 PM | Baseball
SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. — Just three days ago, Cal Poly (41-17, 23-8 BW) pulled off what many thought was improbable and beat a ranked UC Irvine squad twice in a row to secure the Big West Championship and an automatic berth in the NCAA Regionals for the first time since 2014.
The way the tournament unfolded checked a lot of boxes for us. We played games in which we were blown out, did the same thing to opposing teams, had a one-run ball game, had games where we were hitting well, and won games when we weren't hitting well. The ultimate goal is to find a way to win the baseball game, which we did in four out of those five games. Having our team go through a multitude of experiences helped us prepare.Head Coach Larry Lee
REGIONAL BOUND ??
— Cal Poly Baseball (@CalPolyBSB) May 26, 2025
The Big West Champion Mustangs enter the Eugene Regional as a 3-seed and will play Big 12 Champions and 2-seed Arizona to start the double elimination tournament! ??
Oregon (1-seed) hosts the tournament and will face off against 4-seed Utah Valley.#RideHigh pic.twitter.com/V1WscZM1li
The Mustangs now find themselves as a No. 3 seed in the Eugene Regional, which will see them go up against No. 2 seed and the Big 12’s champion Arizona in the first round of a four-team double-elimination tournament. Hosts and No. 1 seed Oregon will take on No. 4 seed and the WAC’s champion Utah Valley. Both Arizona (#21) and Oregon (#5) were ranked by D1Baseball.com heading into regionals week.
The full format and schedule is as follows:
Friday, May 30
Game 1 – Arizona vs. Cal Poly – 1:00 PM
Game 2 – #12 Oregon vs. Utah Valley – 6:00 PM
Saturday, May 31
Game 3 – Game 1 Loser vs. Game 2 Loser – 12:00 PM
Game 4 – Game 1 Winner vs. Game 2 Winner – 6:00 PM
Sunday, June 1
Game 5 – Game 3 Winner vs. Game 4 Loser – 3:00 PM
Game 6 – Game 4 Winner vs. Game 5 Winner – 7:00 PM
Monday, June 2
Game 7 – Game 6 Winner vs. Game 6 Loser (if necessary) – TBD
Aside from the aforementioned 2014 season in which the Mustangs hosted, Cal Poly also made regional appearances in 2009 and 2013, making this the fourth and latest berth. Through those three regionals, Cal Poly is 3-6 with the trio of wins coming over San Diego (2013 Game 1) and Sacramento State twice (2014 Games 1 and 3).
That 2014 regional was the closest Cal Poly has come to advancing to a super regional as the Mustangs fell in the championship final to Pepperdine.
Our four NCAA tournament teams have all been different. In 2009, we had a similar offense where we were thin on pitching but played much longer games. In 2013 and 2014, we had a combination of a couple of good starting pitchers, and two excellent relievers, and were physical offensively as a team. This year's team does a little bit of everything. They're not one-dimensional from an offensive standpoint and can create offense by doing several different things. We play incredibly good defense, hit well, and we're similar in pitching to the previous two teams where we have two guys in the starting rotation that are capable of beating anybody. What's different is that we have three or four very successful bullpen arms.Head Coach Larry Lee
A Look Back at the 2025 Season
The Mustangs battled hard through the end of the season and tournament, skyrocketed its RPI (29 as of 5/25) back to mid-April levels when they found themselves ranked by Perfect Game, won 40+ games for the third time in their Division I history, and set a new Division I program record with 23 Big West wins.
Cal Poly stumbled out of the gate, getting swept and outscored 37-4 by then-unranked UCLA, a program that is now [ranking, RPI info, and regional info], before finally nabbing a decisive first win of the season against LMU.
That set the stage for a grinding battle against No. 1 Texas A&M, a program with some of this year’s top draft prospects and a consensus World Series winner by preseason polls. The Mustangs and Aggies went toe-to-toe in the first two games at College Station, but Texas A&M took the first game 6-1 and narrowly avoided an upset in game two as Cal Poly came within one run of sending the 4-3 result to extra innings.
And finally, it happened. The first real breakthrough in what would become a record-setting season for the books came in the series finale.
Jack Collins and Braxton Thomas overturned the odds against the top team in the country during a three-run rally in the top of the ninth, as Cal Poly snatched a 3-2 win over Texas A&M, the program’s third win over a No. 1 in their Division I era, with the previous two being a 9-8 MLB4 Tournament victory over Vanderbilt in 2020 and a 7-1 home contest against Cal State Fullerton in 2005 at Baggett Stadium.
From there, the Mustangs carried that momentum into their first home series of the season against Seton Hall and took three of four games while totaling 50 runs as a team through the four-game series, second-most in the program's Division I history.
That set off an eight-game win streak with conference series sweeps over Cal State Fullerton and Long Beach State as well as midweek wins against Fresno State and San Jose State. Dylan Kordic made history as he was believed to be the first Mustang in program history and just the second player in NCAA Division I baseball since 2011 to tally two home runs in one inning, which he accomplished in the top of the second against the Spartans.
The Mustangs suffered a slight setback in dropping a series to No. 6 Oregon State at home but earned their second Quad 1 win of the season in the middle game when Jack Collins clobbered a walk-off two-run homer with two outs in the bottom of the ninth to seal the 7-6 comeback win.
The winning did not stop there as, through the next two weeks with series sweeps over UC Davis and UC San Diego, the Mustangs extended their unbeaten conference streak to 12-0, the second-best start to a Big West schedule in conference history.
Hawai’i finally snapped that conference win streak in the series opener of the Cal Poly-hosted series, but the Mustangs still turned the tides and took the next two games for the series victory. Cal Poly finally lost its first Big West series to UC Santa Barbara the next week and suffered a sweep to UC Irvine afterward.
Cal Poly closed out the 15-week regular season with 13 wins in its last 15 games, which included series sweeps over Cal State Bakersfield and UC Riverside book-ending a 2-1 series victory over CSUN. That gave Cal Poly eight of ten series wins for the season, but the Mustangs still narrowly missed out on sharing the Big West Regular Season title with UC Irvine by one game.
Previously in Mustang Baseball
Following an already successful regular season, the Mustangs still had work to do in the Big West Championship after their RPI took major hits through the last few weeks to that point. The Mustangs took care of business by sending hosts Cal State Fullerton to the loser’s bracket with a convincing 7-2 win, where Hawai’i awaited after UC Irvine beat the Rainbow Warriors, setting the stage for the top two seeds to duke it out for a straight shot at the Big West Championship.
A pair of six-run innings powered UC Irvine to a 15-3 seventh-inning run-rule victory over Cal Poly in the winner's bracket final, and Hawai'i eliminated host Cal State Fullerton with a 16-4 decision in Friday's second game.
Now both in the loser’s bracket, the Mustangs rode a clutch pitching performance from Josh Morano as the sophomore transfer tossed 6 1/3 scoreless innings to hold Hawai’i back despite just four hits from the Cal Poly offense with two fourth-inning RBIs from Nate Castellon and Casey Murray Jr. making all the difference in a 2-1 win.
Back in the winner’s bracket and championship final, Cal Poly had to face UC Irvine for the fifth time this season in what essentially was a doubleheader just under an hour after the Hawai’i game finished.
Chris Downs (6-0) pitched 6 1/3 innings for the win against UC Irvine, allowing two runs and three hits with a trio of strikeouts, to send Cal Poly into the "extra" game of the double-elimination tournament as the Mustangs battered a UC Irvine squad that had taken all four previous game off them.
Eight Mustangs collected RBIs in that game, highlighted by multi-RBI efforts from Zach Daudet, Ryan Fenn, Alejandro Garza, Casey Murray Jr., and Jack Collins, as Cal Poly put up a 15-5 result to revenge run-rule the Anteaters by the eighth inning.
Facing the possibility of an automatic berth to the NCAA postseason and second Big West Championship, the Mustangs opened up a 4-0 lead over UC Irvine on 3 RBIs from Murray Jr. (3B, HR) and one from Cam Hoiland before the Anteaters tied the game with a four-spot in the sixth.
Jack Collins in the seventh and Dante Vachini in the ninth added go-ahead runs for the Mustangs as Tanner Sagouspe kept UC Irvine scoreless in the final three innings through just 12 total Anteater batters. That win gave Cal Poly 41 on the season, the program’s second-best total in over twenty seasons under Larry Lee as well as his second Big West Championship.
Mustangs Riding High
Quite a few Mustangs are on milestone watch this weekend after amazing seasons and careers thus far:
- Alejandro Garza, Casey Murray Jr., and Jack Collins are all currently at 58 games this season and are set to hit 60 in the tournament, which would see them tie for eighth-most for a single season in program history.
- Garza has 248 at-bats this season and is already tied for sixth in a season in program history. He is chasing Ryan Lee’s 2009 record of 265.
- Garza’s 89 hits are the most by a Mustangs since Sam Herbert’s 95 in 2004 and currently fourth-most in a single season in program history. The record belongs to Scott Kidd for 105 hits in 1997.
- Ryan Fenn needs one more double to hit 20 this season, which would tie for 10th in a single season in program history. Fenn also has 203 career hits, needing 14 to break into the program’s top 10 all-time.
- Tanner Sagouspe has totaled 63 career pitching appearances and needs three more to tie for 9th in program history. His 26 appearances this season are two away from top-10 for a season in program history.
- Sagouspe’s 16 career saves already sit third-most in program history, and his next milestone would be Michael Clark’s (2016-19) 19 career saves.
As a team, the Mustangs are leading the conference in…
- Batting Average (.318) and 8th in D1
- Doubles (128) and 14th in D1
- Fielding Percentage (.908) and 12th in D1
- Hits (660) and 6th in D1
- Sac Bunts (44) and 12th in D1
Individually…
- Josh Volmerding leads the conference, 2nd in D1 with 16 starts
- Alejandro Garza leads the conference, 14th in D1 with 89 hits
- Garza also leads the conference, 9th in the country for toughest to strike out
Previewing Arizona
With just two games played in the all-time series between Arizona and Cal Poly, this will be the first time since 1969 that the foes have faced off.
The Wildcats have amassed a 39-18 overall record to this point of the season and are one win shy of the coveted 40-win mark. The twelve-team Big 12 tournament had Arizona seeded at four with an automatic bye to the quarterfinals, which the Wildcats then knocked off 12-seed BYU before breezing through 1-seed West Virginia by eleven runs and squeezing past 3-seed TCU in extra innings for the Big 12 title.
Arizona is 4-3 this year when playing top-25 opponents and experienced no trouble when battling California-based opponents, sweeping Pepperdine in four games. Despite some early success, which included a 10-game win streak at the beginning of March, Arizona struggled near the end of the regular season, going 5-5 in May before the conference tournament.
Offensively, Arizona has been solid but not stellar at the plate this season. Led by Mason White with 76 hits, 16 home runs, 66 RBIs, and a .330 average, the Wildcats are getting .280+ hitting from five total players with sufficient starting experience. As a team, they lead all of Division I baseball for triples.
The Wildcats' true strength is in their pitching, currently 10th in the country for K/BB and 7th for BB/9 while opening starter Owen Kramkowski (8-5, 5.03 ERA) is 22nd individually for K/BB ratio. Closer Tony Pluta paces the team with a 1.44 ERA and is 8th in the nation with 12 saves.
“We're still in the initial stages of scouting and putting together info on our opponents, so we're only concerned with our immediate opponent, Arizona. We have a lot of work to do to get a feel for what these opponents are about. When you get this far, only the strong survive and all teams are capable of winning baseball games. We'll have our work cut out for us and all we can do is worry about ourselves, play with confidence, and compete. After the game is over, we just want to know as a team that we gave our best effort, win or lose,” Coach Lee said about his team in advance of the tournament.
Pitching Coach Seth Moir, in his fourth total regional as a coach, remarked, “It’s one of the hardest regionals in the country. We’re excited about the competition, especially because everyone has earned it,” with Assistant Coach Jason Gill, in his 12th regional, commenting, “We’re excited to play in the postseason, and it was one of our goals going into the season. We feel like we’re playing good baseball, and all the other teams are playing great baseball too.”
Griffin Naess (7-2, 3.38 ERA) is set to duel Kramkowski on Friday, with the first pitch set for 1:06 PM (PDT) on ESPN+.
