West Virginia
Mustangs Meet Mountaineers for History-Making Morgantown Super Regional
6/2/2026 11:00:00 PM | Baseball
SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. — Cal Poly will be playing its first-ever athletic event in the state of West Virginia this weekend.
In any sport.
Baseball is the sport of choice as Coach Larry Lee's Mustangs, in the Top 25 for the first time this season, play in their first NCAA Division I Super Regional against the West Virginia Mountaineers. The best-of-three series starts Friday and a berth in the Men's College World Series is at stake.
First pitch is set for 9 a.m. both Friday and Saturday on Wagener Field inside Kendrick Family Ballpark at the Monongalia County Baseball Complex, a 3,500-seat facility that opened in 2015. If a third game is necessary, it will be played Sunday, with the time to be announced.
The series will be broadcast on ESPN2 with Roxy Bernstein and Jensen Lewis calling the action. All three games also will be aired on ESPN Radio (1280 AM and 101.7 FM) with Chris Sylvester, Max Kelton and Eric Burdick on the headsets. Pregame show begins 15 minutes prior to first pitch.
Links for the video and audio streams as well as live stats can be found on the Cal Poly baseball schedule page at GoPoly.com.
A winner of 12 of its last 13 games, Cal Poly (39-22) posted a 3-0 mark en route to the Los Angeles Regional crown at Jackie Robinson Stadium, defeating Virginia Tech 6-2 and Saint Mary's twice by scores of 14-1 and 5-2.
Seeded 16th nationally and winner of 15 of its last 18 contests, West Virginia (43-15) captured its own Morgantown Regional by winning four of five games, including Monday's 10-inning 6-5 triumph over Kentucky despite letting a 5-1 lead slip away in the eighth inning.
The Mountaineers will be playing in the Super Regionals for the third time, all in the last three years following their trip to the Baton Rouge Super Regional in 2025 and the Clemson Super Regional in 2024. West Virginia has yet to compete in a College World Series.
The Mountaineers placed second in the Big 12 tournament after a second-place regular-season finish. Kansas posted a 9-0 victory over West Virginia in the tournament's championship game May 23 in Surprise, Ariz. Kansas also claimed the Big 12 regular-season title with a 22-8 record, one game ahead of the 21-9 Mountaineers.
Cal Poly, ranked 18th by the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association, has competed in five NCAA regionals during its 32-year Division I history, including back-to-back playoff runs in 2013-14 and 2025-26. The Mustangs have captured four Big West titles -- 2014 and 2026 in the regular season and 2025 and 2026 in the conference tournament.
The Mustangs and Mountaineers are very similar in at least two respects. West Virginia owns a .303 team batting average with nine regular position players hitting .268 or above. Cal Poly has compiled a .304 mark at the plate with 10 batters above .270.
The leading hitter for both teams are catchers as well.
Cal Poly junior Ryan Tayman went 6-for-12 in the Los Angeles Regional with two home runs and three RBIs en route to the most outstanding player award. He lifted his average for the season to .362 with 18 home runs, tied for No. 1 in the Mustangs' record book for a single season, and a team-leading 56 RBIs while also throwing out 17 would-be base stealers and picking off three other runners on the basepaths. Tayman was named Big West Co-Field Player of the Year on May 19.
West Virginia sophomore backstop Gavin Kelly sports a .381 average with 19 doubles, 16 home runs and 56 RBIs. He has caught 13 base runners trying to steal and put together a 20-game hitting streak earlier this season. He has played 34 of his 57 games behind the plate with 23 starts at second base. The Pittsburgh native also leads the Mountaineers with a 1.090 OPS, 158 total bases, .709 slugging percentage, and .482 on-base percentage.
Friday's starting pitchers are expected to be Cal Poly junior right-hander Griffin Naess (8-4, 4.00 ERA) and West Virginia redshirt junior southpaw Maxx Yehl (8-2, 2.12 ERA).
Naess seemingly has saved the best for the postseason in his Mustang career. In four career starts following the regular season (two in the 2025 and 2026 Big West tournaments, one in the 2025 Eugene Regional and one in last week's Los Angeles Regional), the Laguna Beach High School graduate has allowed just five total runs on 17 hits while striking out 29 over 28 1/3 innings en route to a 3-1 record and 1.27 ERA.
His 22 career wins are No. 7 in the Cal Poly record book and Naess established a new career high with 14 strikeouts against Washington State on Feb. 20.
After missing the entire 2025 season, Yehl returned to the Mountaineers this spring and was dominant, striking out 101 batters over 85 innings with 24 walks and a .218 opponents' batting average en route to Big 12 Pitcher of the Year honors.
After facing just seven batters in the first inning of the second-round game against Kentucky, allowing four unearned runs on a pair of hits, a walk and two hit batters, Yehl was removed with a possible injury to his left arm. He returned Monday, however, and gave up just one run and three hits over five innings with six strikeouts, again versus the Wildcats. The Mountaineers won 6-5 in 10 innings to advance to this weekend's Super Regional.
Saturday's contest likely will feature redshirt junior right-hander Carson Turnquist (9-2, 3.35 ERA) for Cal Poly and sophomore right-hander Chansen Cole (9-1, 2.87 ERA) for West Virginia. Should a third game be necessary, the potential starters will be Mustang junior southpaw Josh Volmerding (1-1, 6.58 ERA) and Mountaineer graduate student righty Ian Korn (5-1, 3.12 ERA) or junior right-hander Dawson Montesa (5-5, 5.78 ERA), a transfer from Adelphi.
Lee guided Cal Poly to top-four finishes 18 times in his first 22 years as head coach of the Mustangs, but was rewarded with an NCAA regional bid just three times (2009 at Arizona State, 2013 at UCLA's Jackie Robinson Stadium and 2014 in San Luis Obispo).
The 24th-year Mustang skipper long campaigned for a Big West tournament and the conference finally made the move as the last in the country to stage a postseason event. Cal Poly has reaped the benefits, winning both the 2025 and 2026 tournaments to earn the conference's automatic bid to the regionals.
'It's very difficult out west being in a mid-major conference," Lee said in Sunday's postgame press conference. "Over the last 15 years or so, teams out west has kind of taken a backseat. It's very difficult to get a high RPI.
"Last year, going into the championship game, we had 40 wins, which is a lot out west because there are no gimmies, and our RPI was hovering around 30 and if we don't win that game, we're not in because they said we didn't have enough Quad 1 wins, so it takes a lot."
Heading into this year's Big West tourney, Cal Poly's RPI was sitting in the mid-70s with only three Quad 1 victories, not very good numbers for a regional bid. The Mustangs, however, won four of five games at the Big West tourney in Irvine to secure another spot in the NCAA postseason.
"We always play a really tough schedule," said Lee, "but you have to win those games."
Cal Poly won two of three games at Campbell and earned a win against UC Santa Barbara in the Big West tourney for its three Quad 1 wins. Four losses to USC, three more against Oregon State and a 2-2 mark versus Washington State hurt Cal Poly's RPI, which briefly was in triple figures earlier this year.
Cal Poly was 18-16 after the losses to the Beavers in Corvallis, but won nine of its 10 Big West series for the second straight year and has compiled a 21-6 record over the last seven weekends to earn its first Super Regional appearance.
The long ball has played a big role for the Mustangs the last two weekends. Dylan Kordic smashed a three-run home run in the fifth inning of the Big West title game versus UC San Diego for a 4-0 lead and held on for the 4-3 triumph while Gavin Spiridonoff shattered a 2-2 tie with a decisive 391-foot three-run blast of his own in the sixth inning against Saint Mary's in the championship contest of the Los Angeles Regional. Tayman and Cam Hoiland both added a pair of home runs in the latter tournament.
The 60 home runs hit by Cal Poly this year and 61 last season far exceed the Mustang totals of the last several campaigns, ranging from 47 in 2022 down to as low as 13 in 2019. Even the 2014 Big West champion Mustangs hit just 22 four-baggers.
And remember what happened to Cal Poly's team batting average after the NCAA adopted the BBCOR rating for aluminum bats starting with the 2011 season? BBCOR stands for Bat-Ball Coefficient of Restitution and was adopted to reduce a bat's ability to produce a trampoline effect on the ball.
The 2009 Mustang team hit .325 and in 2010 Cal Poly hit .304, but the averages dropped dramatically starting with the 2011 season (.264) and remained mostly in the .270s and .280s before surging above the .300 mark the last two years -- .317 in 2025 and .304 this spring.
"No real reason for the slight uptick in home runs," said Lee. "We play in a big ballpark with a 12-foot fence. The last two years we have had one player with double digit home runs each year and a number of hitters accumulating the rest.
"The past two teams have collectively put up much better offensive numbers on a national level," Lee added.
School records set so far by the Mustangs this season include Nick Bonn's 17 saves, Tayman's 536 putouts and Alejandro Garza's 253 career hits. Tayman has tied the mark for home runs (18) and grand slams (3) in a season.
Cal Poly joins Kansas, Little Rock and Troy as first-time Super Regional participants. Little Rock and Troy play each other this weekend in Troy, Ala., while Kansas hosts Oklahoma.
Other Super Regional pairings are Mississippi State at Georgia, Ole Miss at Auburn, USC at North Carolina, Oregon at Texas and St. John's at Alabama.
The eight winners advance to the Men's College World Series in Omaha, Neb., starting June 12.
Eric Burdick's Super Regional Notes
In addition to Tayman, Cal Poly's top hitters heading into Super Regional play are shortstop Nate Castellon with a .328 average (14 doubles, five home runs, 31 RBIs), third baseman Garza at .325 (21 doubles, five home runs, 49 RBIs), center fielder Casey Murray Jr. with a .321 mark (12 doubles, five triples, five home runs, 31 RBIs) and Hoiland (.315, 13 doubles, six home runs, 29 RBIs) ... Larry Lee is 8-8 in NCAA postseason games after his team's 3-0 mark in the Los Angeles Regional ... Murray was 7-for-12 with five RBIs in the regional while Tayman was 6-for-12 with two homers and three RBIs ... the Mustangs hit .310, committed just one error and outscored their opponents 25-5 in the regional while the pitching staff compiled a 1.33 ERA ... not only are the national overall top-seeded UCLA Bruins out, but so are six others from the top 16 seeds -- No. 2 Georgia Tech, No. 8 Florida, No. 9 Southern Miss, No. 10 Florida State, No. 12 Texas A&M and No. 13 Nebraska ... the Mountaineers have qualified for an NCAA Regional six times in the last nine full seasons, the last two under head coach Steve Sabins and the previous four under former head coach Randy Mazey (who retired after the 2024 season following 35 years as a college coach, the last 12 as head coach of the Mountaineers, to pursue a career in motivational speaking and leadership training) ... West Virginia has won 15 conference titles since launching its baseball program in 1892 and has won 2,419 games ... playing surface at Kendrick Family Ballpark is all FieldTurf and the dimensions are 325 feet to the corners, 375 feet in the alleys and 400 feet to center field ... weather forecast in Morgantown calls for temperatures in the low 80s Friday and Saturday and the upper 70s on Sunday with a shower and thunderstorm possible.
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