2026 Cal Poly Baseball Season in Review
6/11/2026 10:30:00 AM | Baseball
SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. — The Cal Poly baseball team finished the 2026 season just two victories shy of its first trip to the NCAA Division I Men's College World Series.
No. 6 West Virginia dashed the Mustangs' hopes of a trip to Charles Schwab Stadium in Omaha, Nebraska, with a pair of lopsided wins, but that doesn't diminish the success Cal Poly enjoyed in the 2026 postseason:
• Second Big West Conference regular season crown
• Second consecutive Big West Baseball Championship tournament title
• Fifth appearance in an NCAA Division I regional
• First NCAA Division I regional championship at the Los Angeles Regional hosted by UCLA at Jackie Robinson Stadium
• First trip to an NCAA Division I Super Regional
"Our players have nothing to hang their heads about," Lee said moments after the Super Regional came to a close. "They should be proud of what they accomplished and how they represented the team, the school, our community.
"They will look back years from now and they'll be talking about, hey, you know, we played on Cal Poly's first Super Regional team. "That's tough to do right now, but that's how you have to look at it," added Lee, who has confirmed that he will be back for his 25th season as head coach of the Mustangs in 2027 with the hope of finally achieving the No. 1 goal of any college baseball player and coach.
The Road to Omaha is tough to navigate. There currently are 308 Division I baseball programs across the country and only 131 have made at least one appearance in Omaha. Texas leads with 39 trips (including this year), followed by Miami (Florida) (25) and Florida State (24). USC has claimed 12 national titles.
Lee has guided the program to 10 seasons of 35 or more victories, including three 40-win seasons, 20 top-four finishes in 23 Big West seasons (excluding 2020, the COVID year), four conference regular season and tournament titles and five NCAA regionals.
His resumé also includes 40 Mustangs drafted in the first 10 rounds, 16 Major Leaguers and a $10 million clubhouse, elevating the Cal Poly baseball program to a level of play that has reached the upper echelon of the NCAA's Division I West Region.
Cal Poly, however, still has one more goal to achieve, the same one that 177 of the 308 Division I baseball teams in the United States have yet to accomplish, putting together the right combination that culminates with a trip to Nebraska's largest city.
This spring, Cal Poly leaned heavily on two players from the Transfer Portal in 2025 and another back in 2023. Catcher Ryan Tayman (from Cal) and relief pitcher Nick Bonn (from Dallas Baptist by way of Pepperdine) became Mustangs last summer while starting pitcher Carson Turnquist landed at Cal Poly three years ago from Oklahoma.
Tayman led the club with his .357 batting average and 57 RBIs, also contributing 19 doubles, 18 home runs and, defensively, caught 17 baserunners trying to steal and picked off three others. Turnquist earned nine wins on the mound while Bonn notched 17 saves, a victory and a 3.44 ERA as the team's closer.
"From an offensive-defensive standpoint, Tayman was our best player and played the most important defensive position on the team," said Lee. "He rose to the occasion throughout the entire season, so he had a big impact on both sides of the ball.
"Turnquist stepped in and he was our most consistent starting pitcher the entire year," Lee added. "He filled a big gap and met the challenge and was very successful for us.
"Also important was having Bonn at the end of our games because he had a quality arsenal. He had the makeup and attitude needed on the mound. He had a presence that, when he was in, he wanted everybody on the field, in the dugout, in the opposing dugout, to have the mindset of game over," Lee said of the nation's leader in saves. "He was really good for us."
Shortstop Nate Castellon and third baseman Alejandro Garza also were key figures for the Mustangs on the diamond as well as the trio of fifth-year seniors -- outfielders Casey Murray Jr. and Dylan Kordic plus designated hitter Cam Hoiland.
Castellon hit .328 as a sophomore with 14 doubles, five home runs and 31 RBIs, striking out just 15 times in 301 plate appearances (seventh in the nation), while Garza finished his junior campaign with a .318 average and 50 RBIs, leading the club with 91 hits (14th in the NCAA), 21 doubles and 28 multiple-hit games. Garza also was one of the toughest players to strike out, fanning just 19 times in 306 trips to the plate (17th).
Murray hit .316 with 22 extra-base hits, 31 RBIs and was the lone Mustang to start all 63 games at one position this season. Hoiland hit .310 with 14 doubles, six home runs and 29 RBIs while Kordic batted .288 with 14 doubles, 10 home runs and 38 RBIs, finishing his career with 16 outfield assists.
"Castellon and Garza both had another quality season, and our fifth-year seniors played an integral role in not only what you saw on the field, but with the chemistry and leadership of the team as well," said Lee. "Murray played exceptionally in center field, which helped us win a lot of games from the defensive side."
Garza also started all 63 games -- 48 at third, 13 at second and two at shortstop — and Cal Poly finished second in the nation with 158 doubles, one behind Saint Mary's.
The Mustang pitching staff set a new school record with 563 strikeouts this season despite the loss of two starters in the weekend rotation at the start of conference play. Laif Palmer, a transfer from Oregon State, fractured his ankle twice while trying to field a bunt back to the mound at Hawai'i while Josh Volmerding missed six weeks due to a problematic knee.
Three-year starter Griffin Naess posted an 8-5 record with a 4.63 ERA and 97 strikeouts over 91 1/3 innings as the Friday night starter for the second straight year. Stepping into the vacancies created by the injuries to Palmer and Volmerding were Turnquist (9-3, 4.01 ERA) on Saturdays and freshman right-hander Corden Pettey (4-2, 4.99 ERA) on Sundays. Both finished with more strikeouts than innings -- Turnquist 92 over 76 1/3 frames and Pettey 66 in 61 1/3 innings.
Those injuries "definitely created opportunities for others, but it also stressed our bullpen," said Lee. "Pettey was very good for us on Sundays, and with two fewer arms out of the bullpen because of those injuries, the remaining bullpen arms performed extremely well."
That group included freshmen Brady Estes (4-1, 3.61 ERA) and Sean McGrath (3-4, 7.27 ERA), sophomores Troy Cooper (2-0, 5.93 ERA) and Luke Kalfsbeek (0-0, 6.97 ERA), and juniors Josh Morano (3-1, 5.35 ERA) and Chris Downs (3-1, 5.71 ERA).
Aside from the conference record, postseason success, the attack on the school record book and other factors, Lee also pointed to the camaderie of his players all season long as another key to the team's success this year.
"This team is similar to the team we had in 2025 in that it was a close-knit team, they played for each other, they played to win, and they played the best baseball as the season went along," Lee said. "When the playoffs began, first with the conference tournament, then with the regional, they played some high-end baseball on both sides of the ball.
"That's what you remember down the road about your teams, how they performed when the stakes were highest."
Lee has accumulated 752 wins at Cal Poly and 1,212 victories in his 40-year coaching career (including 460 in 16 seasons at Cuesta College). His 24 Mustang teams have averaged 33 wins per season.
The Big West leader in total victories (752) as well as conference games only (348), Lee is No. 36 among active head coaches in NCAA Division I and fifth in the West Region in career triumphs. Lee also has guided the Mustangs to 20 top-four finishes in 23 Big West seasons.
Winner of nine of 10 Big West series this spring and 25 of 30 conference series over the last three years, Cal Poly posted a 39-24 overall mark, broke 11 all-time school team or individual records, tied two other marks, and several players moved into the top 10 in numerous statistical categories.
The school records that were broken include Alejandro Garza's 254 hits in his career and 282 at-bats for a single season, Bonn with his 17 saves this year and Tayman with 546 putouts, also for a single season. Tayman also is tied for No. 1 with his 18 home runs this year.
Team records that fell include most at-bats (2,251), doubles (157), strikeouts by pitchers (583), saves (23), fewest complete games (0), most innings pitched (561 2/3) and most putouts (1,685).
The lone team record that was matched was for games played as the Mustangs equalled the mark of the 1989 Division II national championship team which also played 63 games. The club's 39 wins are tied for No. 6 all-time.
Players who moved into the top 10 include Garza (No. 5 with 753 career at-bats and 48 career doubles, No. 8 with 21 doubles this season and No. 9 with 131 career RBIs), Griffin Naess (No. 4 with 45 career starts and No. 7 with 22 career wins), Bonn (No. 3 with 17 career saves), Jake Downing (No. 3 with 67 strikeouts this year) and Casey Murray Jr. (No. 4 with 65 strikeouts this season).
Turnquist is among several other Mustangs entering the top 20 in various categories in the record book as he earned nine victories, tied for No. 19 with 10 others.
Success in a baseball season often is measured by the number of wins as well as how a team performs in the postseason. Cal Poly has won 82 games in the last two seasons combined, capturing both conference tournament titles after second- and first-place Big West finishes in the regular season and earning back-to-back trips to the NCAA regionals with a 2-2 mark in Eugene, Oregon, and 3-0 in Westwood for its first regional crown in five tries.
"We had a little bit of everything," said Lee. "At the majority of times, there was a good combination of quality hitting and quality pitching.
"Offensively, we were limited in what we could do," Lee added. "We had to swing the bat, occasionally utilize hit-and-run plays, moving runners over with the bunting game and getting hitters in scoring position to allow other hitters to have opportunities to cash in those runs.
"Pitching-wise, we had a combination of good starting pitching and enough of a bullpen to where we could pitch well in a three-game weekend series," Lee continued. "We started out slowly. We just weren't quite ready at the beginning of the season. We did play some quality teams that gave us a measuring stick to allow us to see how much better we needed to get through the course of the season to play our best baseball as we went on."
After winning the series at Campbell to open the season and opening the Washington State series with a pair of victories, Cal Poly slipped to 4-11 before mounting a 10-game winning streak that included an 8-0 start in Big West play, one year after the Mustangs won their first 12 conference contests.
Cal Poly went on to win 22 of 30 Big West games, sharing the regular-season title with UC Santa Barbara and, despite playing seven of the last nine weekends of the schedule on the road, was victorious in 21 of 27 contests capped by conference tournament and NCAA regional championships before falling twice to West Virginia at the Morgantown Super Regional last weekend.
"That's what happened. We played extremely well in conference, won nine of the 10 conference series and we started to get the feeling of playing winning baseball," said Lee.
The coaching staff now sets its sights on the summer recruiting season, seeking replacements for the fifth-year seniors along with seniors Bonn and Xander McLaurin and potentially a few juniors eligible for the Major League Draft, such as Tayman, Garza, Naess, Turnquist, Downs and Volmerding.
"We need to bring in older guys, preferably players who have played at a four-year college, preferably Division I, because there's less risk when filling those needs," said Lee. "And the number one need will be at catcher.
"We've had so much success over the last 15 years behind the plate (Chris Hoo, Nick Meyer, Myles Emmerson and Ryan Stafford, to name a few) and we are fortunate to have gotten two high-end catchers over the last two years from the Transfer Portal (Tayman and Jack Collins), who have been difference-makers within the program.
"But we have a lot of other needs at other positions and throughout our lineup," Lee added. "We need to get better in all areas and create more internal competition. You saw what happened in the Super Regionals. West Virginia had more of a different caliber of athlete that we were facing. And we need to bring in some fresh faces who are going to compete at all of our positions on the field."
Launched in October 2018, the Transfer Portal has changed the way college coaches recruit.
"The transfer portal is everything," said Lee. "Our recruiting has to be a combination of both the portal and high school recruits. You have to be able to get the players that you want out of high school or junior college, and then they need development. If we get players from the Transfer Portal, they probably need a little less development."
Cal Poly announced a nine-player recruiting class, all high school seniors, last November. In addition, outfielder Landon McDonald, a Frontier High School (Bakersfield, Calif.) graduate who led the state with a .492 batting average and hit 15 home runs with 41 RBIs as a freshman at Bakersfield College this spring, announced his commitment to Cal Poly on Instagram on May 20.
