College Roundup: 3 Cal Poly football home games to be on TV

For the first time since 1980, a Cal Poly home football game will be televised live locally.

In fact, three Mustangs home games will be televised live by KSBY this season as the local NBC affiliate will show the Oct. 15 game against Southern Utah, the Oct. 29 game against South Dakota and the Nov. 12 game against Eastern Washington.

Southern Utah, the defending Great West Conference champ, was picked Wednesday by the conference’s coaches to repeat. Cal Poly was picked second in the Great West.

Eastern Washington is the defending FCS national champion.

All three of the home games will kick off at 6:05 p.m.

A Cal Poly spokesman said the last time a home game was televised live locally was the Mustangs’ 1980 Division II national semifinal playoff win over Santa Clara on ABC. The Mustangs went on to win the national championship that season.

The live televised showings by KSBY are part of a three-year sponsorship agreement between Cal Poly and the TV station, which was announced Thursday.

KSBY will also once again pick up a feed from Montana and air the Sept. 10 game between Cal Poly and the Grizzlies in Missoula. Kick off time for that game is 12:05.

Last season, KSBY aired Cal Poly’s men home basketball game against UC Santa Barbara. Men’s basketball contests to be aired on KSBY for the 2011-12 season will be announced at a later date.

Cal Poly tabbed for second in Big West volleyball race

Cal Poly was picked to finish second in the Big West Conference by the conference’s coaches in their preseason poll released Thursday.

The Mustangs received two first-place votes and 72 points in balloting by the conference coaches.

Long Beach State was picked to win the conference and received seven first-place votes and 78 points. The 49ers and Cal Poly tied for second in the Big West last season at 12-4, and Long Beach State received an at-large berth to the NCAA Tournament while the Mustangs did not.

UC Santa Barbara was picked for third with 53 points, one more than defending conference champ Cal State Fullerton.

Recruit gives Mustangs verbal commitment for basketball

With one scholarship available to spend for the upcoming season, the Mustangs received a verbal commitment from Minnesota prep standout Joel Awich on Wednesday.

Awich told The Tribune that he had a future official visit scheduled with New Hampshire but told Mustangs head coach Joe Callero he was committed to Cal Poly after falling in love with the San Luis Obispo campus in a trip that wrapped up Wednesday.

A native Kenyan who also spent five years living with his grandmother in Switzerland before arriving in the United States in eighth grade, the 6-foot-6 power forward said his decision boiled down to education and the direction of the Mustangs program under Callero.

“Cal Poly has a great engineering program, which was my intended major,” said Awich, who averaged 10 points per game while helping the Titans advance to the section title game. “Cal Poly is a team where they’re improving every year.”

Titans coach Mark Klingsporn, who coached Mustangs all-time leading scorer Chris Bjorklund at the AAU level in Minnesota, watched Awich go from the last man on his roster as a freshman to a 35-inch vertical leaper and shot-blocker as a senior.

“He does some eye-popping things on the floor,” Klingsporn said. “And he is very intriguing because he’s very athletic.”

Top academic marks for Mustangs women's track and field

The Cal Poly women’s team is one of 164 teams nationally named a Division I All-Academic Team for having a team cumulative grade-point average above 3.0. The Mustangs have a 3.17 team GPA.

The Mustangs also had Jenny Bergren and Rebecca Paddack named to the individual women’s all-academic team, and Eric Suprenant and Ian Rice were named to the men’s individual all-academic team.

Individuals must have a 3.25 GPA, competed in any round of an NCAA event and finished the season ranked in the top 96 in an individual event or the top 48 in a relay event to make the team.