The last time that Cal Poly Baseball made the trek to Fullerton, Calif., they left as Big West Tournament champions with an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament.
This time, the Mustangs (29-21, 19-8 Big West) left Goodwin field with a series win over the Titans (22-18, 14-13 Big West), and secured a top two seed in the Big West. Cal Poly took two out of three from the Titans, falling in the opener Friday but rebounding Saturday and Sunday behind a strong offense.
The Mustangs are still chasing down UC Santa Barbara (34-15, 19-8 Big West), for the top spot with the Gauchos holding the tiebreaker.
Mustangs drop close opener Friday night
Ace day saw Griffin Naess and Mikiah Negrete duel inside of Goodwin Field, with Cal Poly falling in a close matchup, 3-4. Negrete struggled mightily against the Mustangs in his two starts last season, giving up 13 runs and taking the loss in both of them.
Things were different this time around for the Titans. Naess got tagged early, giving up two runs in the first, and another two runs in the second. After that Naess settled down, going six innings before turning it over to Brady Estes, who pitched two innings of scoreless ball.
Unfortunately for the Mustangs, Negrete was on top of his game. Aside from a rough second inning where Cal Poly tied the game briefly on Gavin Spiridonoff and Jake Downing RBI’s, Negrete cruised through scoreless frame after scoreless frame.
He pitched 6 2/3 innings but was chased in the seventh after Cam Hoiland launched a home run to lead off the frame, Spridonoff followed up with a double and Nate Castellon drew a walk with two outs.
That was the last great chance that the Mustangs got, Andrew Wright came on to get the inning ending flyout, then got through the final two innings by just giving up a hit to allow the home team to snatch game one.
Bounce back Saturday sets up rubber match
After a somewhat quiet offensive performance on Friday, the Mustang offense roared alive Saturday, evening up the series with a 7-6 victory.
Carson Turnquist had issues with his control, but his stuff gave Fullerton batters fits. He walked five batters over six innings, but only gave up three hits. Two of those hits, however, did go for solo home runs.
The offense supported Turnquist early, with a double by Dylan Kordic evening the score in the third. Cal Poly had a hit or walk in each of the first seven frames, and took the lead in the fourth on Downing’s two run blast.
Fullerton started to string together hits in the seventh, already down 7-2 after a three run top half of the inning by Cal Poly.
Turnquist walked the first two batters, then threw away a pick off to make it second and third with no outs. That brought in Nick Bonn, the Big West save leader and top-10 in the nation in saves, to try to stop the bleeding.
Bonn couldn’t escape the inning cleanly. He gave up a wild pitch and walk to allow one run to score, before giving up a three run blast to red-hot Paul Contreras to make it 7-6.
Cal Poly couldn’t find a way to scrape across an insurance run, so it remained a one-run game into the ninth.
Contreras came up in the bottom of the ninth representing the tying run, but Cal Poly elected to intentionally walk him and put the winning run at the plate. It was an unorthodox move that worked out – the next batter went down swinging, Bonn collected his 12th save of the year and set up a rubber match for Sunday’s game.
Cal Poly comes from behind to clinch spot in Big West Tournament
Sunday’s tiebreaker saw Josh Volmerding make his return to the weekend rotation after missing much of the season with an injury.
Fullerton jumped ahead early as Volmerding got into trouble in the third inning. He was lifted for Chris Downs, who gave up the run charged to Volmerding on a fielder’s choice.
It was a short-lived lead for the home team, as the very next inning Cal Poly got to work. Cam Hoiland’s infield single drew an errant throw that allowed two runs to score, before Hoiland was knocked in by Dante Vachini.
Three runs were all that the Mustangs needed to win, but they tacked on three more in the seventh with Ryan Tayman smacking his 15th home run of the season. That moves him into a tie at the top with CSUN’s Matthew Thomas and Matthew Pena on the Big West home run leaderboard.
Defense did threaten the Mustangs in the ninth, as back to back errors allowed the tying run to reach the on deck circle with Cal Poly up 6-2. Brady Estes came on to slam the door on the Titans, collecting the save and clinching the Mustangs spot in the Big West Tournament in Irvine two weekends from now.
Although Cal Poly slipped and dropped a game from the solo lead, they are guaranteed to avoid the play-in game. The top seed in the Big West tournament is not out of reach, but the Mustangs need help from bottom of the table UC Riverside in their series against UC Santa Barbara next weekend.
Cal Poly still needs to hold up their end of the bargain if they are to take the top seed, as they play a Long Beach squad that has been up and down all season long. Senior weekend for the Mustangs against the Beach runs from May 14-16 at Baggett Stadium.
