Cal Poly Track and Field had another successful Big West Championship over the weekend. The men’s team ran away with its third-straight title while the women’s team secured a top-three finish for the fourth straight year.
The Mustang men, led by dominant performances from the distance group, captured first by an outstanding 49.5 points ahead of second-place Cal State Fullerton. The men’s score of 201.5 points was the most by the Big West champion under the current 10-team conference championship format, and the fourth time a men’s team has scored 200 points or more at the conference meet since Cal Poly joined the Big West during the 1996-97 season.
On the women’s side, the Mustangs secured third place with 105 points, finishing behind UC Irvine and Cal State Fullerton. It is the women’s fourth straight season with a top-three finish after placing third in 2023, taking first in 2024 and falling just 1.5 points short to place second in 2025.
Overall, Cal Poly won 10 Big West individual titles between the men’s and women’s teams, surpassing last year’s nine individual conference titles. The 10 victories were the most in a season in program history. A total of 28 Mustangs earned All-Big West honors at the meet, with 30 podium finishes overall.
Cal Poly’s distance runners set the tone in the men’s team victory with a commanding weekend on the track. Across the five distance events, Cal Poly scored 141 points out of a possible 195, sweeping the podiums in four out of the five.
Fifth year Bryce Kueker placed first in the men’s 3,000-meter steeplechase while also breaking a 21-year-old conference meet record with a time of 8:39.21. In the men’s 5,000-meter, freshman Tyler Daillak captured the victory and placed second in the men’s 10,000-meter, following behind redshirt sophomore Rory Catsimanes, who took first.
Graduate student Aidan McCarthy, in his final Big West meet, won the 800-meter with a time of 1:50.76. The win made McCarthy the first four-time 800 champion in Big West history and the third Mustang in program history to win four Big West titles in the same event.
To round out the distance event sweep for the Mustangs, senior Carson Smith claimed the victory in the men’s 1,500-meter after placing second in the past two years.
The men’s team didn’t stop at the track, taking first in three different field events as well.
Sophomore Ben Feyrer won his first Big West title in the men’s pole vault, clearing a height of 5.34 meters. In javelin, redshirt junior Conrad Bernstein captured the conference title with a throw of 69.17 meters to become the third Mustang ever to win the title in the event.
After placing second in 2024 and 2025, 5th-year Travis Martin became the first Mustang to win a Big West title in the men’s hammer throw with a mark of 72.36 meters.
Titles and podium finishes continued to flow in for Cal Poly on the women’s side. Senior Lexi Evans won her third consecutive Big West title in the women’s pole vault to become the second Mustang to win the title three times in the event. With a height of 4.37 meters, Evans broke the Big West meet record in the event, surpassing the previous record of 4.30 meters.
In the women’s 10,000-meter, the Mustangs dominated, taking first through fifth in the event. Led by junior Kelli Gaffney, redshirt freshman Nikki Bridges, juniors Ashlyn Leath and Sydney Sundgren and redshirt senior Isabel Sanchez followed right behind to score an outstanding 33 points in the event. Gaffney also placed second in the women’s 5,000-meter to score 18 points for the Mustangs at the meet.
The Mustangs captured multiple podium finishes in the field events with junior Taylor Hofland taking third in the women’s shot put, freshman Charli Kennedy placing third in the women’s high jump and redshirt junior Camrenne Genilla finishing third in the women’s javelin in her first Big West meet.
Cal Poly will now wait to see who qualified for the NCAA West Preliminaries taking place on May 27-30 in Fayetteville, Arkansas. The full field, held of the top 48 individual marks and top 24 relay times in the West Region, will be announced on Thursday. The Mustangs currently own 18 of the top 48 marks in the region this season.