Entering the 2025 season on the back of its first Big West Regular Season Title in program history, Cal Poly Men’s Soccer is set to face some of the toughest competition in the nation.
The Mustangs’ schedule is highlighted by No. 4 ranked Denver and Big West rival No. 26 UC Santa Barbara, testing a Mustang squad that has found its stride in recent years. However, to face these challenges, Cal Poly can rely not just on Head Coach Oige Kennedy’s strategy, but on some of the top ranked players in the nation.
As the reigning Big West Goalkeeper of the Year, senior Nicky McCune is ranked as the best goalkeeper in the nation by Top Drawer Soccer’s Preseason Top 100 list, and the No. 10 overall player in the NCAA.
Not far behind his keeper, 2024 Big West Defender of the Year and junior Parker Owens ranks No. 37 on the preseason list.
Together, the two anchor a formidable Cal Poly team that has already hit the ground running in the 2025 season.
“They’ve worked really hard over the summer, so they came back in at a really good starting point,” Kennedy said. “We’ve also had two exhibition games that help prep us for the season.”
Cal Poly went 1-1 in the preseason, taking down Pacific University 5-0 before falling to No. 13 Stanford 1-0.
Even with the preseason done, Cal Poly doesn’t have much time to rest before one of its hardest stretches of the season.
A season in “chunks”
Cal Poly starts its 2025 schedule with four consecutive road matches, a tough undertaking even without adding in the No. 4 ranked team in the nation to close out that road trip.
With continuous stretches of away and home games throughout the year, Kennedy and the Mustang squad are taking the season one step at a time.
“We try to chunk up the season, because it can be very big to look at, and you have to kind of break it into different sections,” Kennedy said.
The Mustangs start the season with four road matches before coming home on Thursday, September 11 for a three-match homestand. After two away games in late September, including a Blue-Green rivalry matchup at UC Santa Barbara, Big West conference play begins on October 1.
“We’re going to have to be road warriors,” Kennedy said. “That’s something we’ve got to lean into going against some great teams.”
Luckily, Cal Poly and Kennedy can lean on a Mustang roster filled with veteran leaders and young talent at nearly every position.
The Mustang Roster
Nine out of Cal Poly’s regular starting 11 from 2024 are returning this season. With added experience, and some new threats back on the field, the Mustangs are set to be a daunting opponent this season.
Last year, Cal Poly managed to have one of the best seasons in program history, winning the Big West Regular Season, without one of its most experienced attacking threats.
Senior forward Luke Schaefer co-led Cal Poly in goals scored in 2023, earning a Big West Honorable Mention. After missing a year to injury, he is just one of Cal Poly’s additions set to impact the team this season.
The team’s depth is also bolstered by young talent, namely freshman Michael Vick, who has stepped up to round out the Mustang backline this year.
“He red-shirted his freshman year, so it’s pretty cool to see him come in and perform at the level he has been,” fellow defender Parker Owens said.
With so much talent and experience on the roster, Kennedy relies on one main metric when choosing his squad for a match.
“Our biggest thing here is we want it to be a meritocracy,” Kennedy said. “So if the best players are the younger players, then we try to reward that and go off what we see.”
On Thursday the roster will face its first challenge of the year in a familiar California opponent.
Cal Poly vs San Jose State
For its first regular season game of the season, Cal Poly travels north to take on San Jose State at 7 p.m. on Aug. 21. When the teams last faced each other in 2024, the Mustangs took down the Spartans 1-0.
The team’s success last year was largely based on grit and effort, two core parts of the team Kennedy is still focused on to get results.
“Past success won’t guarantee future outcomes, and so we have to be really hungry to keep moving the needle and keep pushing forward and making progress,” Kennedy said.
The match against the Spartans kicks off a four-game road trip and a strong 2025 campaign for the Mustangs, who enter this season looking to repeat their success in the Big West.
“From our perspective, these are the games we want to be in,” Kennedy said. “We want to be playing against those types of tournament teams, so that it kind of gives us the prep that we will need to hopefully be in the same position and playing in the postseason at the end of this year.”
