UC San Diego
Mustangs Seeking to Upset Big West Leader UC San Diego in La Jolla
4/16/2026 2:00:00 PM | Baseball
SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. — First place in the Big West Conference is at stake this weekend as second-place Cal Poly visits frontrunner UC San Diego for a three-game series at Triton Ballpark.
First pitches are set for Friday at 6 p.m., Saturday at 2 p.m. and Sunday at 1 o'clock. The first and third games will be video streamed on ESPN+. Links for the video streams and live stats can be found on the Cal Poly baseball schedule page at GoPoly.com.
Cal Poly, the defending Big West tournament champion, improved its overall mark to 19-16 with a 7-3 victory over Pepperdine on Tuesday while UC San Diego, which claimed the Big West crown in 2023, fell to 15-17 with a 9-1 loss at San Diego State.
The Tritons are 11-4 in Big West games, one game ahead of both Cal Poly and UC Santa Barbara at 10-5. The Gauchos play at UC Irvine this weekend while fourth-place Cal State Fullerton (11-7) plays out of conference at Oregon State. Fifth-place CSUN (9-9) hosts UC Davis.
UC San Diego, which will move to the West Coast Conference on July 1, 2027, after seven seasons in the Big West, was 4-10 before opening Big West play with a sweep of its series at CSUN. The Tritons also swept UC Davis while earning 2-1 series wins against UC Riverside and Hawai'i.
Last weekend, UC San Diego dropped two of three Big West contests at UC Santa Barbara, taking the opener 4-3 before falling 11-10 in 11 innings and 3-1.
Steele Murdock struck out a school-record 17 Gauchos and the Tritons scored three runs in the eighth inning to snap a 1-1 tie in the opener. UCSD rallied from a 6-1 deficit with four runs in both the sixth and eighth innings Saturday before the Gauchos tied the game with three runs in the ninth and scored the game-winner in the 11th on a walk-off single up the middle by Xavier Esquer. In the finale, the Tritons let a 1-0 lead slip away in the seventh and eighth frames.
Cal Poly dropped all three games against No. 7 Oregon State in Corvallis last weekend. Scores were 6-3, 11-6 and 3-2. The Mustangs held a lead in each contest and the series was plagued by rain and lighting all weekend with lightning delays of one hour and 45 minutes Friday and 40 minutes Saturday.
Junior infielder Alejandro Garza was 8-for-13 in the Oregon State series with three multiple-hit games and added three more hits in Tuesday's win over Pepperdine. His batting average has climbed 100 points to .369 over the last four weeks thanks to multiple hits in six of his last seven games and 11 of 16, giving Garza a team-leading 18 multiple-hit contests this season.
Cal Poly's .295 team batting average, just two points behind No. 1 CSUN in the Big West, also is paced by center fielder Casey Murray Jr. with a .336 mark, 16 extra-base hits and 18 RBIs, and shortstop Nate Castellon and catcher Ryan Tayman, each with .326 averages.
Castellon leads the Mustangs with 13 doubles while Tayman owns top team marks with 11 home runs and 35 RBIs.
On the mound, 24th-year Mustang head coach Larry Lee will use the same three pitchers who have been in the weekend rotation the last four weeks.
Junior right-hander Griffin Naess (4-2, 4.47 ERA) will start Friday night's contest, with redshirt junior righty Carson Turnquist (2-2, 4.29 ERA) on Saturday and freshman right-hander Corden Pettey (2-2, 4.39 ERA) on Sunday.
UC San Diego will counter with Murdock (4-1, 5.77 ERA), a sophomore right-hander, on Friday, followed by another redshirt sophomore righty, Trevor Rector (0-1, 9.82 ERA) on Saturday and graduate right-hander Nic Gregson (0-7, 6.02 ERA) on Sunday.
Even though the Tritons sit atop the Big West standings, the Tritons are last in the conference in hitting with a .232 team batting average, eighth in pitching with a 6.52 staff ERA and seventh in fielding with a .975 percentage (29 errors in 32 games).
No UCSD players own batting averages of .300 or better. Shortstop Anthony Potestio tops the hitting chart with a .295 average, 12 RBIs and nine steals, followed by third baseman J.C. Allen at .291 with nine doubles, four home runs and 27 RBIs, and left fielder Alex Leopard with a .276 average, four home runs and 16 RBIs.
UC San Diego, which elevated its athletics program to NCAA Division I on July 1, 2020, has a long history of success in the lower divisions. As a Division III independent from 1980 through 2000, the Tritons earned five NCAA regional playoff berths, including trips to the College World Series in 1987 and 1994. As a Division II member of the California Collegiate Athletic Association from 2001-19, UC San Diego made five College World Series appearances, including runner-up finishes in 2010 and 2017, and earned regional playoff berths 13 times. The Tritons were CCAA tournament champions six times and claimed the CCAA regular season title four times.
Cal Poly and UC San Diego are meeting in baseball for only the sixth year this weekend. The Mustangs swept the Tritons a year ago in Baggett Stadium by scores of 9-6, 8-3 and 12-11. First baseman Jake Downing went 6-for-10 at the plate with four RBIs while Garza was 6-for-12, also with four RBIs. In 2022, Drew Thorpe tied a school Division I record with 15 strikeouts in the opener of the series at La Jolla.
The series stands at an 8-8 tie.
Cal Poly jumped to a 4-1 start this spring, lost six straight to fall to 4-7, then won 10 straight games, including an 8-0 start in Big West play, to lift its overall mark to 14-7. The Mustangs then lost nine of their next 13 contests prior to Tuesday's win over Pepperdine.
Triton head coach Eric Newman (15th season, 462-305, Texas Tech '97) took over the Triton baseball program when Dan O'Brien, head coach at UC San Diego for 14 seasons from 1998-2011, became head coach at Santa Clara in 2012. Newman is a three-time ABCA/Diamond West Region Coach of the Year, twice earned CCAA Coach of the Year honors and added his first Big West Coach of the Year award in 2023 to his resumé.
Newman has compiled 40-win seasons three times (2017-19) and each of his first nine campaigns with the Tritons resulted in winning records. Prior to arriving at La Jolla, Newman was the pitching coach at Nebraska (2008-11) and served as associate or head coach at Dallas Baptist (2002-07). A draft selection of the San Diego Padres, he played eight seasons of professional baseball. Newman played two seasons at Fresno State before finishing his collegiate career at Texas Tech. He earned a master's degree in higher education from Dallas Baptist in 2004 and received a bachelor's degree in family studies at Texas Tech in 1997.
Lee is 732-568-2 in 23-plus seasons with the Mustangs and, combined with his 16 seasons at Cuesta College, is 1,192-809-5 overall as a head coach. He guided Cal Poly to the Big West tournament crown in 2025 with a 4-1 mark and his program's fourth trip to the NCAA postseason, going 2-2 in the NCAA Eugene Regional.
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