Cal Poly is the Cinderella story of NCAA volleyball tournament. A big test is next
Thrown into a regional packed with ranked programs, Cal Poly’s volleyball team delivered two of the tournament’s biggest upsets at USC’s Galen Center last week.
And now the Mustangs are in the Sweet 16 as this year’s Cinderella story.
Entering the NCAA Championship Tournament with a sparkling 25-7 record but little national appreciation, the Mustangs knocked off No. 5 seed BYU on Thursday and No. 4 seed USC on Friday in back-to-back rounds in the Kentucky region.
Those first- and second-round upsets wiped out every perfect bracket in ESPN’s bracket challenge and left the Mustangs as the lone remaining unranked team. No one else left in the tournament has less than a No. 4 seeding.
In fact, their five-set thriller against USC earned an honorable mention on the NCAA’s list of greatest volleyball tournament upsets. Cal Poly jumped out to a two-set lead before USC battled back to force a fifth.
In the chaos of that fifth set, redshirt senior Annabelle Thalken had a moment where everything slowed down, she told The Tribune this week.
She came off the court, glanced at the scoreboard and realized they were actually pulling away from USC. As she watched Ella Scott step back to serve, the emotion hit her.
“I just started to tear up, and I was just so excited,” she said. “I knew we weren’t done yet, and it was just so amazing to be in that moment.”
The win over USC made Cal Poly the first Big West team to reach the regionals since 2019 and marked the program’s first appearance in the third round since 2007.
The Mustangs (27-7, 14-4 in conference) punched their ticket to the NCAA tournament when they knocked off UC Davis for the conference championship and earned the Big West’s automatic bid.
Cal Poly was undefeated at home, going 15-0 at Mott Athletics Center.
Cal Poly’s biggest test yet
Now, Cal Poly heads into the Sweet 16 with a shot at top-seeded Kentucky, the nation’s No. 2 overall team. The Wildcats, the regional host, have only two losses this season — to No. 1 Nebraska and No. 4 Pittsburgh.
“There’s a lot of excitement going in and facing Kentucky,” Thalken said. “We’ve beaten two great teams and proved that we have earned our spot here in the Sweet 16.”
As Cal Poly prepares for the next round on Thursday, the NCAA re-ranked the remaining field, and the underdog label still sticks.
The Mustangs are slotted at the very bottom, ranked No. 16. National expectations for the Mustangs remain modest, even after their early-round upsets.
“Nobody expects us to win,” redshirt senior Emme Bullis said. “It’s nice to not have any expectations for ourselves and just go out and know we can play free and as hard as we want.”
Despite what the rankings say, the Mustangs remain confident in who they are.
“We know our identity,” Bullis said. “We’ve been playing to our identity, and it’s shown in our results. We aren’t really surprised by our wins.”
Bullis also reached a major milestone against USC — moving into second place in program history with 4,296 career assists — and credited all of it to her coaches and team.
Still, even with the national attention sparked by their historic first- and second-round run, Bullis said nothing about their practices has changed.
It’s the same drills. The same pace. The same mindset. If what they’re doing is working, and clearly it is, there’s no reason to reinvent anything now.
“We’ve been doing things right, and that’s why we’ve made it this far,” she said. “We’re just being ourselves and getting better every day.”
And now the challenge is their biggest yet.
SEC conference champ Kentucky (27-2) has Final Four expectations, is playing at home and hasn’t lost to an unranked opponent all season. Big West champ Cal Poly (27-7) knows the margin for error is small, but the mindset going into it won’t change.
“Whatever number is behind the teams we play, or no number at all, it’s all the same to us,” Bullis said.
Cal Poly will face the Wildcats on Thursday in Lexington at 12:30 p.m. The match will be broadcast nationally on ESPN2.