Fresno State
Mustangs Wrap Midweek and Road Slates on Tuesday at Fresno State
5/11/2026 6:45:00 PM | Baseball
SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. — Cal Poly concludes an eight-game road trip, its longest of the 2026 baseball season, Tuesday afternoon with the last of three midweek contests against Fresno State. The Mustangs won the first two meetings, 13-3 on March 10 in San Luis Obispo and 10-4 on March 31 in Fresno.
First pitch for the Mustangs' final midweek game of the year is set for 5:05 p.m. on Pete Beiden Field at Bob Bennett Stadium. The non-conference contest will be video streamed on the Mountain West Network, with links for the broadcast as well as live stats available on the Cal Poly baseball schedule page at GoPoly.com.
Cal Poly is 29-21 overall after winning two of three games over the weekend at Cal State Fullerton. The Mustang are tied for first place with UC Santa Barbara in the Big West Conference. Fresno State is 14-34-1 for the 2026 campaign and last in the nine-team Mountain West Conference following its two-games-to-one series loss at home versus UNLV.
Cal Poly has clinched the Nos. 1 or 2 seed for next week's Big West tournament at UC Irvine and wraps up the regular season by hosting Long Beach State on Thursday through Saturday inside Baggett Stadium. Fresno State plays its final three games of the 2026 season at San Jose State and has been eliminated from the Mountain West tournament next week at Sloan Park in Mesa, Arizona.
The Mustangs have won 11 of their last 16 games, including six victories on the road. Cal Poly has played 14 of its last 19 contests on the road and has won eight of its nine Big West series with one more to be played at home this weekend. The Mustangs are 6-3 in midweek games this year.
Cal Poly is hitting .303 as a team through 50 games, best in the Big West. Shortstop Nate Castellon leads the way with a .348 average, including 14 doubles, five home runs and 24 RBIs. Third baseman Alejandro Garza is next at .339 with 19 doubles, five home runs, 43 RBIs and a team-leading 23 multiple-hit games.
Also above the .300 mark for the Mustangs are catcher Ryan Tayman at .335 (13 doubles, 15 home runs, 49 RBIs), outfielder/designated hitter Xander McLaurin at .320 (eight doubles, 13 RBIs), center fielder Casey Murray Jr. at .313 (10 doubles, four home runs, 20 RBIs), first baseman Gavin Spiridonoff at .312 (12 doubles, 17 RBIs) and right fielder Dylan Kordic at .303 (12 doubles, seven home runs, 31 RBIs).
Garza has 240 hits in three seasons at Cal Poly and needs just 12 more to match Jimmy Allen’s program standard of 252, set from 2011 to 2014. Kordic has 13 career outfield assists while Tayman has thrown out 16 would-be base stealers and has picked off three other baserunners.
Fresno State's .267 team batting average is paced by designated hitter Griffen Sotomayor (.331, 10 doubles, six home runs, 35 RBIs), shortstop Brady Hewitt (.314, 13 doubles, four home runs, 20 RBIs) and catcher Ethan Payne (.308, three doubles, eight RBIs).
Sophomore southpaw Luke Kalfsbeek (0-0, 7.02) will be Cal Poly's starter on the mound Tuesday. The Colusa High School graduate tossed two scoreless innings with three strikeouts against the Bulldogs in the first meeting and allowed just one hit over 4 1/3 innings in Meeting No. 2, giving up two runs with three walks and four strikeouts. He was not involved in either decision.
Fresno State will counter with freshman right-hander Jordan Haver (3-3, 6.06 ERA), who has appeared on the mound 19 times with six starts this season. A graduate of Oakdale High School, Haver has struck out 33 batters over 35 2/3 innings and earned his wins against Stanford, Cal State Bakersfield and Washington State. He started the game at Cal Poly on March 10 and allowed one run and two hits over two innings in the no-decision.
Cal Poly swept all three midweek games against Fresno State last year by scores of 7-3, 13-5 and 11-6 as well as the first two meetings this season, but the Bulldogs still own a 121-75 advantage in the all-time series which began in 1945. The Mustangs have won 31 of their last 43 games against the Bulldogs, including three of five games during Fresno State's national championship season in 2008.
Lee is 33-14 against Fresno State while Bulldog head coach Ryan Overland owns a 1-9 mark versus Cal Poly.
Lee earned his 1,200th career victory in 40 seasons at Cal Poly and Cuesta College with an 8-6 triumph at UC Irvine on May 3. He is 742-573-2 in 23-plus seasons with the Mustangs and, combined with his 16 seasons at Cuesta College (460-241-3), is 1,202-814-5 overall as a head coach. Lee 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.
Overland (fourth season as head coach, 108-119-1, Fresno State '08) was an assistant coach under Mike Batesole for 10 seasons before he was named interim head coach on Dec. 30, 2022. A catcher on the Bulldogs' 2008 national championship team, Overland played in 186 games, compiled a career .273 batting average with 11 doubles, seven home runs and 54 RBIs, and was a part of three Western Athletic Conference championships before earning his bachelor's degree in communication studies in 2008.
Overland was a graduate assistant coach at South Dakota State (2009-10) while earning his master's degree in health, physical education and recreation. He then served as Fresno State's baseball intern for the 2011 season and volunteer assistant coach in 2012. Overland was named a full-time assistant coach at Nevada in the fall of 2012 before he was hired by Fresno State prior to the 2013 season.
A 2004 graduate of Atascadero High School, Overland played baseball and basketball for the Greyhounds. He was a pitcher and catcher in baseball, earning three team MVP awards and first-team All-Los Padres League and All-San Luis Obispo County honors in both 2003 and 2004. Overland's father, Dale Overland, was head baseball coach at San Luis Obispo High School for seven seasons (1989-95), leading the Tigers to the 1990 CIF-Southern Section 4-A Division championship.
Ryan Overland earned his 100th win as Fresno State head coach on March 1, an 11-8 triumph against Stanford, which clinched for the Bulldogs their first series win over the Cardinal in 27 years. The Bulldogs were 7-4 after a midweek 2-0 win over Sacramento State on March 3 but have won just seven of 37 games with one tie since, including a 3-17-1 Mountain West mark.
The tie was a wild 18-18 draw at New Mexico on March 29 in a game called after 10 innings because of the Bulldogs' travel plans back to Fresno that evening.
Game times for the series against Long Beach State this weekend at Baggett Stadium are 6:05 p.m. Thursday and Friday and 1:05 p.m. on Saturday. Five Mustang seniors will be honored Saturday in a pregame ceremony.
