Cal State Fullerton
Mustangs Defending First Place Once Again, Continue Road Trip in Fullerton
5/7/2026 2:00:00 PM | Baseball
SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. — Last weekend, the Cal Poly baseball team opened an eight-game road trip by winning two of three Big West games at UC Irvine, maintaining its hold on first place in the conference.
Coach Larry Lee's Mustangs seek to extend that kind of success into this weekend, continuing their longest road trip of the 2026 season by visiting Cal State Fullerton for another crucial Big West series.
Game times are 6:35 p.m. Friday, 5:05 p.m. Saturday and 1:05 p.m. Sunday at Goodwin Field. All three games of the series will be video streamed on ESPN+ and links for that and live stats are available on the Cal Poly baseball schedule page at GoPoly.com.
Cal Poly, 27-20 overall, enters the weekend one game in front of second-place UC Santa Barbara with six conference games remaining for both teams. The Mustangs are 17-7 while the Gauchos take a 16-8 mark into their series this weekend at CSUN.
UC San Diego, swept by Long Beach State last weekend, fell to third place with a 14-10 Big West record while Cal State Fullerton dropped from third into a tie for fourth place with Hawai'i, each 13-11. The Titans lost all three games at home to UC Davis while Hawai'i swept UC Riverside. The Rainbow Warriors are at UC Davis this weekend while the Tritons visit Cal State Bakersfield.
Last time Cal Poly visited Goodwin Field, the Mustangs won four of five games to capture the 2025 Big West tournament title and earn a berth in the NCAA regionals. One of those victories was a 7-2 decision over Cal State Fullerton, 11 weeks after the Mustangs swept the Titans at Baggett Stadium by scores of 10-9 in 11 innings, 11-8 and 10-4.
Cal State Fullerton, 21-26 overall, was 4-8 in a dozen non-conference games before opening Big West play this year 5-1, including a sweep of UC Irvine. The Titans then were swept by CSUN at home but remained in the hunt for a conference regular season crown, pulling to within two games of Cal Poly before last weekend's sweep at the hands of the Aggies by scores of 7-6, 11-5 and 6-2.
Both the Mustangs and Titans lost their midweek games Tuesday -- Cal Poly 11-4 at Santa Clara and Cal State Fullerton 13-4 at No. 18 USC. The Mustangs are 6-3 in midweek games and 12-10 on the road, winning seven of eight Big West series so far. The Titans are 10-11 at home this season. Cal Poly has won nine of its last 13 games while Cal State Fullerton has lost five straight.
Held to just eight hits by Santa Clara, Cal Poly's team batting average slipped two points to .303. The Mustangs sport a .329 average in Big West games, have produced double-digit hits in 12 of their last 17 games and have notched 15 come-from-behind wins in 2026.
Sophomore shortstop Nate Castellon leads all Cal Poly hitters with a .360 average, which includes 14 doubles, five home runs and 23 RBIs. Junior third baseman Alejandro Garza is next with a .347 mark and is first on the team with his 18 doubles and 22 multiple-hit games and second with 43 RBIs.
Garza has 237 hits in three seasons at Cal Poly and needs just 15 more to match Jimmy Allen’s program standard of 252, set from 2011 to 2014.
Next on the Mustang hitting charts is junior catcher Ryan Tayman at .335 with team-leading figures of 14 home runs and 47 RBIs. He also has thrown out 14 would-be base stealers and has picked off three other baserunners. Fifth-year center fielder Casey Murray Jr. is hitting .330 with 10 doubles and 20 RBIs and is No. 1 on the club with 25 walks.
Fifth-year right fielder Dylan Kordic knocked in six runs with two doubles and a pair of home runs in the UC Irvine series and currently is hitting .303 with 11 doubles, seven home runs (all in the last 21 games) and 29 RBIs. Kordic has gone 26-for-67 at the plate (.388) in his last 21 contests with 10 doubles and 26 RBIs, lifting his batting average 136 points.
Cal Poly is first in the Big West in batting (.303), fifth in pitching (5.08 ERA) and eighth in fielding (.972). Cal State Fullerton has conference rankings of fifth in hitting (.261), third in pitching (4.35 ERA) and seventh in fielding (.973).
Top Titan hitters include right fielder Paul Contreras (.331, 11 home runs, 30 RBIs) and second baseman Nick Miller (.309, 24 RBIs).
Pitching matchups for the series are Cal Poly junior right-hander Griffin Naess (5-3, 4.72 ERA) versus Cal State Fullerton senior southpaw Mikiah Negrete (7-3, 2.16 ERA) on Friday and Mustang redshirt junior righty Carson Turnquist (5-2, 3.51 ERA) against Titan freshman right-hander Bobby Mahoney (2-2, 3.73 ERA) on Saturday. Neither team has announced starters for Sunday.
Naess has had great success against Cal State Fullerton in his two previous career starts. In 2024 he took a no-hitter into the ninth inning with seven strikeouts in a combined 6-0 one-hit shutout with Tanner Sagouspe, and last spring produced another quality start with three runs and six hits over 6 1/3 innings for a no-decision in a game won by the Mustangs 10-9 in the 11th frame on a walk-off single by Dylan Knowles.
Negrete allowed two runs and six hits over seven innings with six strikeouts in an 8-2 win over Cal Poly in 2024 and surrendered eight runs and nine hits in five innings in the extra-inning loss to the Mustangs in 2025.
This season Naess struck out a career-high 14 batters over seven scoreless innings, giving up just one hit, in a 9-0 win over Washington State, and also owns victories over Hawai'i, Cal State Bakersfield, UC Riverside and UC San Diego.
Negrete pitched a two-hit shutout with 11 strikeouts in a complete-game 2-0 win at Hawai'i and also went the distance, allowing one unearned run and three hits with six strikeouts in a 2-1 victory at Oregon State three weeks ago.
Cal State Fullerton has won 30 conference titles in 50 Division I seasons, has appeared in 41 regionals (the last in 2023), including the stretch of 27 consecutive seasons from 1992 through 2018, along with 14 Super Regionals and 18 College World Series, capturing national championships in 1979, 1984, 1995 and 2004. The Titans are 702-315 since late 1992 at Goodwin Field and never had a losing season in 47 Division I campaigns (excluding the pandemic-shortened 2020 season) until 2021.
Former Titans who made it to the Major Leagues include Tim Wallach, Phil Nevin, Mark Kotsay and Ricky Romero (all first-round draft picks) along with Kurt Suzuki, Chad Cordero, Jeremy Giambi, Justin Turner, Michael Lorenzen, Dylan Floro, Phil Bickford, Matt Chapman and Tanner Bibee. A total of 72 former Titans have played in the Major Leagues.
Jason Dietrich (fifth season, 120-148, Cal State Fullerton '99), the sixth head coach in the Titans' Division I history, was pitching coach at East Carolina for two seasons before he was named Titans head coach on June 30, 2021. He was pitching coach at Cal State Fullerton from 2013-16 and also coached at UC Irvine (2008-12) and Oregon (2017-19). Dietrich has worked under Mike Gillespie, George Horton and Rick Vanderhook, who was the Titans' head coach for 10 seasons before stepping down following the 2021 campaign.
Dietrich began his coaching career as the pitching coach at Arcadia High School (1999-2001). He became a college pitching coach at Los Angeles City College in 2002 before moving to Irvine Valley College (2003-06) and Cal State Los Angeles (2007). He also spent time as a pitching coach for the Hyannis Mets (2004-05) of the Cape Cod Baseball League and Southern California Fire (2003) of the Western Wood Bat League.
Prior to coaching, he played one year with the New Jersey Jackals of the Northeast Baseball League (1998) and four in the Colorado Rockies organization (1994-98) after being selected in the 19th round of the 1994 MLB Draft out of Pepperdine, where he earned West Coast Conference Honorable Mention accolades. During his professional career, Dietrich posted a 7-2 record with a 2.84 ERA and seven saves in 44 appearances. Dietrich played at Santa Ana Community College from 1991-93, leading the team to the state title in 1993, and is a 1999 Cal State Fullerton graduate.
Cal Poly and Cal State Fullerton have met 133 times on the baseball field since the series began when both teams were California Collegiate Athletic Association members back in 1966. The Titans hold a 75-58 advantage, though Cal Poly has won 13 of the last 16 meetings between the two schools.
Cal Poly has enjoyed some recent success against the Titans with 31 victories in the last 56 meetings over the previous 17 seasons, winning series at home in 2007, 2011, 2014, 2016, 2017, 2021 and 2025 in addition to the 2022 sweep in Fullerton, the Mustangs first series win at Goodwin Field since 1997, the year Cal Poly joined the Big West, and the 2-1 series win in 2024.
Cal Poly is 36-63 against Cal State Fullerton since the Mustangs moved to Division I prior to the 1995 season. Lee is 32-36 against Cal State Fullerton while Dietrich is 3-10 versus Cal Poly.
Lee earned his 1,200th career victory in 40 seasons at Cal Poly and Cuesta College with Sunday's 8-6 triumph at UC Irvine. He is 740-572-2 in 23-plus seasons with the Mustangs and, combined with his 16 seasons at Cuesta College (460-241-3), is 1,200-813-5 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.
Cal Poly closes its eight-game road trip Tuesday at Fresno State and wraps up the 2026 regular season with a three-game Big West series against Long Beach State next Thursday through Saturday at Baggett Stadium.
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