Additional Information and Notes About the Morgantown Super Regional
6/4/2026 9:15:00 PM | Baseball
MORGANTOWN, W.Va — The Cal Poly baseball team held a 90-minute practice session Thursday afternoon at Kendrick Family Ballpark, preparing for its first-ever NCAA Division I Super Regional appearance.
Coach Larry Lee's Mustangs will play a best-of-three series Friday through Sunday against the West Virginia Mountaineers. First two games will start at 9 a.m. PDT on ESPN2, with the third contest, if necessary, scheduled for Sunday with the time and network to be announced.
Cal Poly flew on two small charter planes from San Luis Obispo Regional Airport to Morgantown Municipal Airport on Wednesday, departing at 10 a.m. PDT and, after stopping in Pueblo, Colo., to refuel the planes, arriving in West Virginia at 7:30 p.m. EDT.
The Mustangs practiced Thursday at 2:45 p.m. EDT inside Kendrick Family Ballpark, which was followed by a media availability.
Cal Poly is 39-22 for the season and has qualified for regional play five times while West Virginia carries a 43-15 record into Friday's opener, appearing in a Super Regional for the third straight year. Both teams have never played in the College World Series.
"This team, it's tough, resilient, we do a few things well, and we just try to hide our blemishes," Lee said of his 24th team as Mustang head coach. "A lot of our players experienced the Eugene Regional last year, so hopefully they can take that into this week. It's just going out there and playing to our standards. We understand it's going to be a tough challenge, but we've had tough challenges before."
The Mustangs have won 12 of their last 13 games, claiming a share of the Big West regular season title, capturing their second straight Big West tournament championship and qualifying for the program's fifth trip to an NCAA Regional, going 3-0 in Westwood last weekend.
Cal Poly was 4-11 heading into Big West play in early March and 18-16 after the seventh--ranked Oregon State Beavers swept the Mustangs 6-3, 11-6 and 3-2 on April 10-12, but Cal Poly has won 21 of its 27 games since.
"When we played with the better pitching staffs, it was kind of tough," said Mustang third baseman Alejandro Garza. "It was kind of tough getting people to buy into the game plan of just putting the ball into play playing as a team, not for yourself, not as an individual. This was how we were going to win games and put pressure on teams the most."
Added catcher Ryan Tayman, "That's been our motto since day one. It's gotten us this far and we hope to keep on going. The coaching staff does a great job of teaching us the game as well, especially approach-wise with situational hitting, and I think that's something that I lacked in my first two years of college baseball especially (at Cal). In the fall, our coaches teach you a lot of things on the development side and being prepared for certain situations."
Capacity crowds of more than 4,500 fans are expected for the series inside 3,500-seat Kendrick Family Ballpark. There are grass berms on both sides of the field for those who buy standing-room-only tickets.
"The atmosphere is going to be great here this weekend and it's definitely going to be the most people I've played against," said Garza. "The field plays great. We're playing in a Super Regional in front of thousands of fans."
The Mustangs aren't using the cross-country trip as any excuse this weekend.
"We're ready to go," said Tayman. "It's going to be fine. It's going to be a good weekend of baseball."
The Mustang players received a nice present at the team hotel Thursday morning, courtesy of former Cal Poly pitcher Bryan Woo, now a member of the starting rotation for the Seattle Mariners.
On the way to practice Thursday afternoon, many of the players wore Adidas Hyperboots with green trim, then switched to workout turf cleats with gold trim. Woo donated all the brand new footwear to the team after Cal Poly claimed the Los Angeles Regional championship.
Woo (5-3, 3.44 ERA) pitches Friday night at Detroit.
There has been a change in the pitching matchups for the best-of-three series.
As expected, junior right-hander Griffin Naess (8-4, 4.00 ERA) will start for the Mustangs while West Virginia will go with sophomore right-hander Chansen Cole (9-1, 2.87 ERA).
In last week's Morgantown Regional, three West Virginia starters pitched twice in the four-day tournament.
Cole started Friday's opener against Binghamton and allowed one run and four hits over six innings with no walks and 10 strikeouts, earning his ninth victory of the season with the 10-1 West Virginia triumph. Cole came back in Monday's championship final versus Kentucky and secured five outs with no runs, one hit, two walks and a pair of strikeouts.
Mountaineer junior southpaw Maxx Yehl (8-2, 2.12 ERA) was the starter against Kentucky on Saturday and was only able to secure two outs, allowing four unearned runs on two hits, a walk, an error and a pair of hit batters. He was taken out of the game with an apparent injury to his left arm.
Two days later, Yehl was the starter in the championship final, again versus Kentucky, and gave up just one run and three hits over five innings with six strikeouts. The Mountaineers won 6-5 in 10 innings to advance to this weekend's Super Regional.
Junior right-hander Dawson Montesa (5-5, 5.78 ERA), a transfer from Adelphi, pitched 7 1/3 innings in the 10-5 win over Wake Forest on Sunday, allowing five runs and four hits with four walks and seven strikeouts. The next evening, he pitched the final two outs for the win in the championship game against Kentucky. West Virginia let a 5-1 lead slip away in the eighth inning but snapped a 5-5 tie in the bottom of the 10th inning on a single, a walk and Armani Guzman's RBI single to center field for the walk-off win.
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, twice his old mark, against Washington State on Feb. 20. He also fanned 11 UC San Diego hitters in the Big West tournament on May 21.
After missing the entire 2025 season following Tommy John surgery in 2024, 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.
Cole pitched for NCAA Division II Newberry College in 2025, posting a 7-5 record and 3.39 ERA, before transferring to West Virginia. Three times this spring, he has pitched five scoreless innings, and Cole tossed eight shutout frames at Texas Tech on April 12. He fanned nine Kansas State batters in a complete-game 9-1 Mountaineer win on May 2, scattering five hits.
Yehl likely will pitch against Cal Poly on Saturday, facing Mustang redshirt junior right-hander Carson Turnquist (9-2, 3.35 ERA). Should a third game be necessary, the potential starters are junior southpaw Josh Volmerding (1-1, 6.58 ERA) and freshman righty Corden Pettey (4-2, 4.53 ERA) for Cal Poly and Montesa or graduate student righty Ian Korn (5-1, 3.12 ERA) for West Virginia.
Turnquist has earned seven wins in his last seven starts and has recorded 90 strikeouts over 75 1/3 innings with a .191 opponents' batting average. He allowed one run and five hits over six innings with no walks and seven strikeouts in a 14-1 win against Saint Mary's last Saturday in the Los Angeles Regional, eight days after striking out seven over six innings in a 4-2 triumph over UC Santa Barbara in the Big West Baseball Championship at UC Irvine.
Although Cal Poly is visiting the state of West Virginia for the first time in any sport, turns out one of the Mustang baseball players has already pitched against the West Virginia Mountaineers.
As a freshman at Oklahoma in 2023, junior right-hander Carson Turnquist made a relief appearance in the eighth inning of a Big 12 Conference game in Morgantown on May 5. The Paso Robles High School graduate allowed two walks and hit a batter without securing an out, but another Sooner reliever halted the rally with a double play and a grounder to first.
Oklahoma won the game 9-3 and Turnquist was not involved in the decision.
Under normal circumstances, the Cal Poly baseball team would be joined by several administrators from the athletics department for an event such as the Super Regionals of the NCAA Division I Baseball Championship.
This weekend, however, is not one of those normal circumstances.
That's because the university also is celebrating the grand opening of the John Madden Football Center with a dedication ceremony on Saturday, forcing several staff members to stay home this weekend, including director of athletics Carter Henderson and Deputy Director of Athletics Jackson Stava.
"This weekend will be marked in the Cal Poly Athletics history books for both the first ever baseball Super Regional appearance, and the grand opening of the John Madden Football Center," said Henderson. "The opportunity to compete for a College World Series berth, and the opening of a facility that will be transformational for our entire department, are both strong illustrations of the great momentum building behind Mustang Athletics.”
Construction of the $55.5 million project is complete and the 33,000 square feet of space includes a locker room, coaches' offices, team meeting rooms, weight room, training and medical support spaces and a lounge space with a nutrition area.
"While we likely could never have imagined a scenario where we would miss Cal Poly’s first-ever Super Regional, we also recognize how extremely fortunate we are to have to choose between witnessing those historic games and opening a truly game-changing facility on our campus," added Stava. "I believe this is a reflection of the strong future ahead for Mustang Athletics and I hope to have to make many more decisions like this because of the success of our department and our student-athletes.”
Mustang senior closer Nick Bonn is one of 14 finalists for the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association Stopper of the Year Award, presented to the nation's top relief pitcher in NCAA Division I.
Bonn leads the nation with 17 saves entering this weekend's Morgantown Super Regional hosted by West Virginia. Three other closers -- Oregon State's Albert Roblez (2-1, 1.50 ERA), UCLA's Easton Hawk (7-4, 1.93 ERA) and Liberty's Cooper Harrington (2-2, 3.61 ERA) -- share second place with 14 saves while J'Shawn Unger (6-1, 4.05 ERA) of Nebraska has 13 saves.
"When you watch him pitch, you understand why he's in that role," said Lee. "It's aggression. It's a little bit of Al Hrabosky, the mad Hungarian. He just goes after you, and he has a mix of real quality pitches."
Bonn is 1-4 on the year with a 3.49 ERA. He is one of five closers who remain in postseason action this weekend. The others are Georgia's Caden Aoki (9-1, 3.86 ERA, three saves), Oregon's Tanner Bradley (5-1, 1.76 ERA, one save), Texas' Sam Cozart (6-0, 1.72 ERA, eight saves) and North Carolina's Caden Glauber (10-0, 2.06 ERA, four saves).
Arizona's Tony Pluta won the award in 2025.
The 2026 NCBWA Stopper of the Year honoree will be announced during a news conference at the Men’s College World Series on Friday, June 12, at Charles Schwab Field in Omaha.
Cal Poly is playing on the road for the seventh time in the last nine weekends.
The stretch of 22 games away from Baggett Stadium began with three non-conference contests at No. 7 Oregon State on April 10-12 and was followed by weekend series at UC San Diego, UC Irvine, Cal State Fullerton, the Big West Baseball Championship in Irvine and last week's NCAA Los Angeles Regional hosted by UCLA at Jackie Robinson Stadium.
Cal Poly's only home games since the road trip to Corvallis, Oregon, were Big West series against CSUN and Long Beach State plus midweek games versus Pepperdine and Santa Clara.
Here's a fun fact, as the media likes to call it ...
The three remaining teams in the playoffs from the West Region are Cal Poly, USC and Oregon. The head coaches of those three programs have something in common, besides the fact they are Division I head coaches.
All three -- Cal Poly's Larry Lee, USC's Andy Stankiewicz and Oregon's Mark Wasikowski -- played baseball at Pepperdine.
Cal Poly will be playing its seventh baseball game in the month of June on Friday and the contest with West Virginia will be the latest ever for the Mustangs on the calendar.
Cal Poly played twice in June at the 2013, 2014 and 2025 regionals, posting a 2-4 mark. The Mustangs lost to UCLA 6-4 on June 1 and San Diego 8-5 on June 2 in 2013, beat Sacramento State 6-5 and lost to Pepperdine 10-6, both on June 1 in 2014, and defeated Utah Valley 7-6 in 11 innings and lost to Arizona 14-0, both on June 1, a year ago.
A few more notes (or fun facts, if you prefer) worth mentioning ...
- There are five teams in the Super Regionals that have never qualified for the College World Series ... four of them are Cal Poly and West Virginia, playing each other in Morgantown, Virginia, and Little Rock and Troy, also playing each other in Troy, Alabama ... that means this year's College World Series will have at least two new entrants and, since the Morgantown Super Regional is paired with the Troy Super Regional in the bracket, one of the four teams will win its first ever CWS game ... Kansas also is a first-time Super Regional qualifier ... the Jayhawks were coached by former Cal Poly mentor Ritch Price for 20 years before he retired following the 2022 season.
- Cal Poly will be playing on an all-turf field for the fourth time this season. The Mustangs also played road games on all-turf fields at Campbell, Hawai'i and Oregon State, compiling a 4-5 record.
- There are three schools in NCAA Division I with Trojans as their mascot. They are USC, Little Rock and Troy. All three are in the Super Regionals this weekend.
- Cal Poly has recorded 23 come-from-behind victories this season, including a rally from a 2-0 deficit in a 5-2 win over Saint Mary's in the championship final of the Los Angeles Regional.
- The Mustangs have amassed double-digit hits 35 times this season, including 20 or more hits three times -- 25 versus UC Riverside on March 27, 24 against San Diego on April 19 and 20 versus Fresno State on May 12.
- Cal Poly is the first Big West team to advance to a Super Regional since Cal State Fullerton in 2018. The Titans claimed the Stanford Regional title before falling to Washington in three games at Goodwin Field. Cal State Fullerton also is the last Big West team to reach the College World Series, beating Long Beach State in a Super Regional at Blair Field in 2017. The Titans own four national titles — 1979, 1984 and 1995, all under former Cal Poly head coach Augie Garrido, and 2004 under George Horton.
- The Mustangs claimed back-to-back conference championships this year for the first time in 32 seasons. Cal Poly captured four straight California Collegiate Athletic Association Division II titles from 1991-94.
- Cal Poly led the nation in hits a year ago with 701. This year, the Mustangs are No. 2 in doubles (155) and No. 7 in hits (663).
- Kendrick Family Ballpark also is home to the West Virginia Black Bears, who compete in the MLB Draft League, a summer collegiate league.
- The Southeastern Conference (SEC) was represented by 12 teams in the regionals and half of them made it to the Super Regionals -- Alabama, Texas, Auburn, Ole Miss, Georgia and Mississippi State. Nine Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) teams were selected and only one -- North Carolina -- advanced.
- With two teams invited to the postseason, the Big West is one of just seven conferences with multiple teams in the 64-team field. Cal Poly went 3-0 in the Los Angeles Regional while UC Santa Barbara was 1-2 and eliminated in the College Station Regional. The Mustangs and Gauchos shared the Big West regular-season title with 22-8 records.
- Only three of last year's College World Series participants made the regional field this year, and that trio -- UCLA, Arkansas and Oregon State -- was eliminated from the postseason last weekend, the first time the entire CWS field from the previous year didn't make it past the next year's regionals.
- West Virginia is 46th in the nation in stolen bases with 104, led by Armani Guzman, who is 15th with 36 in 39 attempts. Paul Schoenfeld has 23 in 29 tries and Tyrus Hall is 17-for-20 this season.
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