As another year of Cal Poly athletics begins, teams are forced to adapt to life without the leaders they looked to just one year ago.
For Cal Poly men’s soccer and men’s tennis, this feeling hits especially close to home. Men’s Soccer captain midfielder Nate Colley and Men’s Tennis co-captain Bastiaan Weststrate both graduated in 2025, but their impact on each program will be felt long after their time on the field.
Both leaders have played pivotal roles in revitalizing programs, leaving their teams with some of the best circumstances possible looking towards the future.
“One of the biggest things we asked the guys is to leave the jersey in a better place than when they found it, and that’s something our captains can absolutely testify to doing,” Men’s Soccer Head Coach Oige Kennedy said.
Trusting the Process
During his tenure Colley experienced both the highs and lows of college athletics.
The Danville, California native joined Cal Poly during the cancelled 2020 season. In his first three years with the program, the team went a combined 9-17-8. The stretch included one of the worst seasons in program history in 2022 where they won just 2 games.
To make matters worse, long-time head coach Steve Sampson had been forced to retire mid-season that year due to health complications.
When the dust eventually settled in the offseason, only 13 of the 44 players on the roster remained for 2023.
Colley, a newly elected captain, quickly stepped up to lead the new group, not just because he was now one of the longest tenured players with the Mustangs, but because it was what his teammates did for him when he arrived in 2020.
Colley says the veterans on his team helped him keep his motivation throughout his first few years with the team, and their support led him to pick up the captain role in just his sophomore year.
“The guys did a great job of making my class feel like members of the team right away, and now that’s something I try to pass along to the younger guys,” Colley said.
The team also brought in veteran head coach Oige Kennedy, who won multiple national titles with Stanford and Fort Collins University.
Kennedy entered the program with the goal of creating a culture of hard work and intensity, principles Colley has embodied throughout his career.
“His values really aligned with our values when we got here,” Kennedy said. “Nate has truly been really consistent with the standard he set for himself.”
After a rebuilding year in 2023, the result of Colley’s high standards began to pay off.
Cal Poly men’s soccer went 7-4-8 in 2024, winning the first Big West Regular Season Title in program history and only conceding an average of 0.676 goals-per-game, ranking No. 2 in the NCAA.
Colley missed part of the season while recovering from an injury, but once his cleats hit the field, he instantly made a difference. The captain converted a penalty to take down UC Santa Barbara in Cal Poly’s biggest game of the year.
While the midfielder’s on-field journey at Cal Poly is over, it ended in spectacular fashion, with the team ready to fight for titles for years to come.
“I’m incredibly grateful for all of it,” Colley said. “I wouldn’t trade any of it, you know, and I look back on these experiences as some of the best things in my life.”
The values instilled by Colley in the Cal Poly men’s soccer are fundamental parts of Cal Poly athletics as a whole. Cal Poly’s men’s tennis team went through a similar rebuilding process in 2025, headed by a veteran captain in his last year with the team.
The Perfect Partner
Weststrate, also known as Bobby to teammates and friends, is one of the best Cal Poly tennis players in program history.
Weststrate went 38-26 in doubles across four years of play, earning All-Big West honors in each of his seasons.
“Since his very first day here on campus, he’s been one of, if not probably one of the top 5-10 best doubles players that the schools ever had in their division one history,” Men’s Tennis Head Coach Nick Carless said.
Weststrate played with six partners during his Cal Poly career, adapting to what each of his partners needed from him as a player.
His leadership style followed the same gameplan as his on-court approach, supporting teammates and coming through when it mattered most.
Much like Colley, one of Weststrate’s main goals was to make new members of the team feel welcome. As a freshman last season, teammate John Cross discovered the lengths of Weststrate’s mentorship early in his journey as a Mustang.
“Bob was the first person to offer me to stay at his house,” Cross said. “He took me under his wing right away as my captain and doubles partner at the beginning of the season. He’s exactly what you want to see as a freshman from a senior.”
Cross was one of many underclassmen Weststrate led on the 2025 team. In fact, Weststrate was the only graduate of the 11 players on the roster.
So while the team is losing a core part of their team, the culture instilled by Weststrate and the coaching staff remains well in-place for 2026. Additionally, 2025 junior co-captain Sean Kamyshev is set to continue in his role at the head of the team.
Despite being two years apart in eligibility, Kamyshev and Weststrate found a connection through both being the same age and being foreign students. The two combined their unique strengths as captains and players to lead the team through 2025.
“I’m known to have a little bit of a temper,” Kamyshev said. “I’m a little bit more angry and he’s more the mellow guy. So it’s a good balance.”
Retaining their culture and nearly all of their roster, Cal Poly’s men’s tennis program is set to continue their steady improvement over the course of the next two seasons.
In 2025, sophomore and freshman stepped up to take on some of the biggest challenges of the season. Sophomore Raz Haviv played at Line No. 1 singles for most of the season, taking on and beating top-ranked opponents.
With a young core ready to step up as they gain experience and a solid foundation from 2025 to build off, Weststrate’s role as a veteran and benchmark for the program was pivotal moving into the upcoming year. In his words, the mark he leaves on the program is more than the many achievements he accomplished on the court.
“I just want to leave a legacy that people can talk about,” Weststrate said. “It’s not always about the tennis. It’s also about how you show up every day, your attitude, your work ethic.”
