Cal Poly Awards 2025-26 Athletes, Scholar-Athletes of the Year
6/2/2026 10:00:00 AM | Baseball, General, Men's Basketball, Men's Tennis, Track and Field, Beach Volleyball, Women's Soccer, Women's Volleyball, Wrestling
SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. — Eleven Big West Championships. A record-shattering Commissioner’s Cup performance. Over 100 all-conference selections. Twenty-nine school records broken. Seventy-one conference all-academic selections.
These were just a few of the highlights from a 2025-26 season that had it all for Cal Poly Athletics. Mustang student-athletes delivered excellence on the field and in the classroom, capping the year with a conference-record 11 Big West Championships.
Cal Poly celebrated its annual end-of-year awards ceremony, Night of the Mustang, on Monday. Headlining the honorees were Male Student-Athlete of the Year Ryan Tayman, a catcher for Mustang Baseball, and Female Student-Athlete of the Year Izzy Martinez, a record-setting senior on the Beach Volleyball team.
Tayman, the Co-Big West Field Player of the Year and an All-Big West First Team honoree, led the conference in home runs and RBIs. The junior transfer from Cal anchored the program from behind the plate and in the batter’s box, tying the program’s Division I records for home runs and grand slams while also earning a spot on the Buster Posey Collegiate Catcher of the Year Watch List.
For the second straight year, a beach volleyball student-athlete won Female Athlete of the Year honors. Izzy Martinez followed Piper Ferch’s 2024-25 performance to claim the award this season. Martinez was one of the nation’s top beach volleyball players: an AVCA Second Team All-American, a First Team All-Big West selection for the fourth time in her career, an AVCA Top Flight Winner, and a key contributor to the Mustangs’ 2026 Big West Championship, NCAA Championship appearance, and quarterfinal run.
This season, Martinez and her partner, Logan Walter, led the nation in wins while setting the program’s single-season and career pair wins records. Individually, Martinez tied the program’s career wins record with 112, becoming the fourth Mustang to surpass 100 career victories.
Lighting it up in their debut seasons as Mustangs, men’s tennis player Jovan Lubbe and men’s basketball’s Hamad Mousa split Male Newcomer of the Year honors, while volleyball’s Charlotte Kelly took home solo Female Newcomer of the Year honors.
Lubbe put together a dominant freshman season, making the increasingly rare jump from high school straight to the team’s No. 1 spot in both singles and doubles. The South African native was named Big West Men’s Tennis Freshman of the Year and earned All-Big West First Team Singles and Second Team Doubles honors. In helping the Mustangs clinch the regular-season title, Lubbe upset No. 89 Lucca Liu (UCSB) in the season finale and clinching match.
Mousa earned All-Big West First Team and NABC All-Pacific District Second Team honors after finishing 25th in Division I with 20.4 points per game. He recorded 652 points, a Cal Poly Division I record and just six shy of the all-time mark, and scored in double digits in 31 of 32 appearances. Only the second player in program history to score 600 points, Mousa was also named a finalist for the Riley Wallace Award, recognizing the nation’s most impactful Division I transfer.
Charlotte Kelly was a pleasant surprise for the Mustangs volleyball program, forced into a starting role during preseason after an injury to reigning first-team honoree Breklyn Pulling. Alongside helping the Mustangs to a Big West Championship, an NCAA Regional Championship, and an NCAA Sweet 16 appearance, Kelly earned Big West All-Freshman Team honors. She finished second in the Big West in total blocks, tied for first in block assists, and ranked second on her team and seventh in the conference in hitting percentage.
Scholar-Athlete of the Year awards went to wrestler Anthony Berg and women’s track & field athlete Lexi Evans for their continued success in both the classroom and competition.
Berg, a sophomore pursuing a bachelor’s in civil engineering while maintaining a 3.95 GPA, compiled a 16-9 overall record on the mat this season. He placed second at 165 pounds at the Pac-12 Championships and earned an upset victory in the semifinals over No. 5-ranked All-American Matty Bianchi. In April, Berg received NWCA Scholar All-American honors.
Evans, a senior pursuing a bachelor’s in aerospace engineering, punched her ticket to the NCAA Outdoor Championships for the first time on Thursday in Arkansas, breaking her own school record in the women’s pole vault to secure her spot at nationals. The San Diego native won her third straight Big West pole vault title just over two weeks ago. In March, she became the first Mustang in 26 years to earn All-American honors in the women’s indoor pole vault, placing 12th at NCAAs for Second Team praise. In the classroom, Evans boasts a 3.925 GPA and is a multiple-time Big West All-Academic honoree and USTFCCCA All-Academic Athlete. Last year, she was selected to the College Sports Communicators Academic All-America Third Team.
Brooklyn Burns (volleyball) and Trevor Tinker (wrestling) were honored with The Mustang Way Award, representing the very best qualities of a Mustang: leadership, character, and commitment to Cal Poly’s core values.
Weight room warriors Aaron Price Jr. of men’s basketball and Sophia Minnite of women’s soccer received the Male and Female Iron Mustang Awards, respectively.
Through this week, Cal Poly has tallied 106 All-Academic honorees across fall and winter sports, 29 broken school records, and 71 conference all-academic selections during the fall and winter seasons.
Cal Poly men’s and women’s soccer, men’s and women’s cross country, indoor and beach volleyball, men’s tennis, men’s track and field, baseball, and women’s golf all won Big West team titles.
Baseball is still alive in the NCAA tournament after sweeping the Los Angeles Regional with a win over Virginia Tech and two against Saint Mary's.
With championships, national rankings, NCAA appearances, and strong academic results, the 2025-26 season marked one of the most successful in recent Cal Poly memory. The Mustangs now turn the page to the 2026-27 season with momentum, excitement, and pride.
