Making History and Overcoming Adversity: Looking Back at 2025 Mustang Baseball
6/3/2025 6:00:00 PM | Baseball
SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. — One would think that a college baseball team that won 43 of 62 games, breezed through a 23-7 conference schedule, captured the conference tournament title and secured a berth in an NCAA regional had sailed through its season with few interruptions.
Not so fast.
Remember the 1-5 start? Or the absence of its leading hitter due to a blood infection in his chest for nine games? Or the 15-5 shellacking at the hands of UC Irvine in the second round of the Big West Championships? Or blowing a 4-0 lead two days later against the Anteaters before rallying to claim the Big West tournament title?
That’s just a small sampling of adversarial moments that Coach Larry Lee’s Mustangs were forced to overcome en route to one of the most successful campaigns in the program’s 31-year Division I history.
“The ultimate goal is to find a way to win the baseball game, which we did in four out of those five games at the conference tournament,” said the 23-year Mustang skipper last week. “Having our team go through a multitude of experiences helped us prepare.
"Our players showed their toughness, resiliency, and ability (at the Big West tournament),” Lee added after his team had bounced back with a pair of wins over the-then No. 20 Anteaters. "I couldn't be more proud of how they performed under the pressure that each game presented. That weekend will prepare us for what lies ahead.”
In their fourth NCAA Division I regional appearance last week in Eugene, Oregon, the Mustangs split four games to finish second to Arizona.
In no particular order, let’s review the 2025 Mustang baseball team in its most adversarial moments:
The moments that made it all happen! ??#RideHigh pic.twitter.com/BtO7MhAkFf
— Cal Poly Baseball (@CalPolyBSB) February 23, 2025
Jack Collins stepped up to the plate with his team trailing then-No. 1 Texas A&M 2-0 in the top of the ninth and smashed his first home run as a Mustang, a two-run shot to left field that tied the game at 2-2. Casey Murray Jr. followed by reaching base on an Aggie error and eventually scored on Braxton Thomas’ grounder to third. Murray adroitly slid away from the tag, reached out to touch the plate going by and tallied the go-ahead run in the 3-2 upset. Many consider Collins’ home run as the spark that turned around a 1-5 start to the season.
That's the face of a man who just walked off a conference opponent ??
— Cal Poly Baseball (@CalPolyBSB) March 8, 2025
Cal Poly opens the Big West slate with a thrilling win in extras over Cal State Fullerton!#RideHigh pic.twitter.com/KnkRlcWXVN
Cal Poly squandered an 8-1 lead against Cal State Fullerton in the Big West opener for both schools as the Titans scored six times in the eighth inning and once in the ninth for a 9-8 lead. In the bottom of the ninth. Dante Vachini singled and moved around the bases on a steal and two wild pitches, tying the game at 9-9. Vachini also singled to open the 11th, moved to second base on a sacrifice bunt and scored the winning run on a walk-off single to center field by Dylan Knowles. That was the first of 12 consecutive victories by the Mustangs to open conference play, the second-longest such streak in Big West history.
Clobberin' Collins! ????#RideHigh ???? https://t.co/KRnVowtguk
— Cal Poly Baseball (@CalPolyBSB) March 23, 2025
Down 4-1 in the series opener against No. 6 Oregon State, Cal Poly tried to mount a comeback as Jack Collins belted a two-run home run in the ninth inning. The blast was erased, however, as the umpires ruled that the Beavers had committed a pitch clock violation one second prior to the blast. The Beavers held on for the win. The next afternoon, Collins smashed another two-run shot in the ninth frame, capping a four-run rally, as the Mustangs won in walk-off fashion, 7-6.
T6 | BOOGIE BOMB ??
— Cal Poly Baseball (@CalPolyBSB) May 25, 2025
Casey Murray Jr. absolutely BLASTS a no-doubter over left field to give Cal Poly two more runs! ??
CP 4?-0? UCI#RideHigh pic.twitter.com/ctpfwxw2Vm
Murray’s remarkable turnaround from a lackluster 2024 campaign in which he hit just .175. Last fall, head coach Larry Lee was trying to decide on a starter in center field to replace Jake Steels, who hit .381 in 2024. Lee eventually chose Murray and he did not disappoint, starting all 62 games and hitting .310 with nine home runs, 46 RBIs and committing no errors in 165 chances. Perhaps his finest moment came in the NCAA Eugene Regional in which he went 4-for-4 with a home run and three RBIs in a win over No. 5 Oregon in his first start as Cal Poly’s cleanup hitter. Murray also had four hits against UC Riverside two weeks prior and finished the year with a 17-game hitting streak, going 30-for-73 (.411).
WALK. OFF. MAGIC!!! ??
— Cal Poly Baseball (@CalPolyBSB) June 2, 2025
Zach Daudet wins it for the Mustangs in extra innings, and Cal Poly advances to play Arizona!
FINAL: CP 7?-6? UVU#RideHigh pic.twitter.com/FIkssxkxW5
The Mustangs let a 6-4 lead slip away against Utah Valley in an elimination game at the NCAA Eugene Regional as the Wolverines scored single runs in the sixth and seventh innings to tie the contest. Utah Valley nearly won it in the ninth, loading the bases with two outs before Jake Torres secured an inning-ending grounder to second base. Zach Daudet came to the plate leading off the bottom of the 11th and smashed his ninth home run of the year on a 1-2 pitch over the wall in right-center field for the 7-6 victory. It was Cal Poly’s fourth walk-off victory of 2025 — Jack Collins (Oregon State and UC Riverside) and Dylan Knowles (Cal State Fullerton) provided the first three — and the Mustangs staved off elimination for the fifth straight time — three in the Big West tournament and two more at the regional.
Other notable moments of adversity, also in no particular order:
- Through the first seven games of the season, Cal Poly scored just 20 runs before exploding for 50 in a four-game series against Seton Hall, the second-highest total for a four-game set in school history. The Mustangs went on to score double-digit runs 20 times.
- Cal Poly lost five straight Big West games against UC Santa Barbara and UC Irvine and suffered its first midweek loss in nine tries against Santa Clara in late April before righting the ship and winning nine of its last 10 regular season games. That six-game skid nearly cost the Mustangs a chance at an at-large bid to the NCAA postseason, but the late-season run led to a 4-1 sprint through the Big West Championships, including two wins versus No. 20 UC Irvine for the automatic bid to the regionals.
- After being run-ruled by UC Irvine in a 15-3 rout on the second day of the Big West tournament and needing three straight wins to claim the title and extend its season into the NCAA postseason, Cal Poly received back-to-back brilliant relief performances by southpaws Josh Morano and Chris Downs. Both sophomores pitched 6 1/3 frames — Morano scattering five hits in a 2-1 win over Hawai’i and Downs allowing two runs and three hits in a 15-5 triumph over UC Irvine — to set up a one-game winner-take-all rematch with the Anteaters for the tournament title and automatic berth in the NCAA regionals.
- More adversity in the Big West title game for the Mustangs as they jumped to a 4-0 lead in the first six innings, only to see it evaporate in just two pitches. After Murray tripled in a run and scored on a groundout in the second inning and smashed a no-doubt two-run home run in the top of the sixth, UC Irvine scored on a two-out error and, on the next pitch, a three-run home run by Jacob McCombs to tie the game in the bottom of the sixth. Collins gave the lead back to Cal Poly with an RBI single in the seventh and Vachini’s sacrifice fly in the ninth sealed the 6-4 victory for the crown.
- Another personal form of adversity, this time for Tanner Sagouspe. After his first 14 appearances on the mound, Sagouspe was 2-1 with four saves and a stingy 0.98 ERA as the Mustangs’ closer. On April 6, the junior right-hander gave up four runs to UC San Diego, starting a slide that resulted in his ERA climbing to 3.60. Since and including that UCSD game (21 2/3 innings over 12 appearances), Sagouspe’s ERA was 5.82. On May 25, in the Big West championship game versus UC Irvine, Sagouspe was at his best, allowing no earned runs and scattering three hits over 3 1/3 innings in relief for his fourth win of the year, a 6-4 title-clinching decision.
- Second baseman Ryan Fenn missed four games in the first half of March, including the Cal State Fullerton series, and first baseman Zach Daudet, hitting .410 at the time, was sidelined nine games in April, both due to injury. Freshman Jake Downing stepped up to fill the voids, going 7-for-17 (.412) with a home run and two RBIs in place of Fenn and 12-for-36 (.333) with two doubles, a triple and six RBIs replacing Daudet.
- Hawai’i snapped Cal Poly’s 12-0 run to start Big West play, the second-longest such streak in conference history, with a 10-inning 4-2 victory, scoring three times in the final two frames to overcome a 2-1 Mustang lead. Undaunted, the Mustangs won the remaining two games of the series and edged UC Santa Barbara 4-3 the following weekend to improve its Big West start to 15-1.
- Cal Poly kept its postseason hopes alive by scoring four times in the ninth inning — Fenn’s two-run triple highlighting the uprising — to overcome a 1-0 deficit in the opener of the Cal State Bakersfield series and trailed the Roadrunners 4-2 before scoring four in the fourth and five more in the sixth — freshmen Dante Vachini and Nate Castellon combining for six hits and six RBIs — en route to a 12-6 win in the series finale.
- Just getting to Eugene for the regional was an adventure. The Mustangs were split into two groups for flights out of San Luis Obispo Regional Airport. One group flew to Portland before catching another flight to Eugene and arrived on schedule. The other group, however, went to San Francisco, where its second flight to Eugene eventually was canceled after midnight. That assemblage of players and coaches was forced to spend the night at a hotel before catching another flight to Eugene the next day. Practice schedules at PK Park and team meetings needed to be adjusted to accommodate the Mustangs.
We came, we saw, we conquered, and we made sure to #RideHigh!
— Cal Poly Baseball (@CalPolyBSB) June 2, 2025
We are incredibly proud of our athletes, coaches, and the staff who made this historic season possible. Thank you to our Mustang fans for your unwavering support through it all! pic.twitter.com/CLMEKO5scP
Despite all the adversity, Cal Poly hit .317 as a team, the highest mark since the 1997 team posted a .336 team batting average, and also led the Big West in fielding percentage at .981 en route to 43 wins, second-most in program history.
“The 2025 team played with a lot of ‘old school’ toughness and was a very resilient team, whether the resiliency was in game or after a loss,” said Lee. “We have a saying in our program that ‘winners win.’ Thats what this year’s team was able to do at a high rate.”
