Cal Poly baseball wins back-to-back Big West Championships in do-or-die game

With one shot left at a title in Sunday’s winner-take-all showdown, Cal Poly baseball stepped onto its biggest stage of the season and delivered, securing its second consecutive Big West Championship.

A 4-3 win at Anteater Ballpark in Irvine over UC San Diego delivered Cal Poly (36-22) back-to-back conference championships for the first time since the 1993-94 season as the team punched its ticket to the NCAA Regionals.

Coming into Sunday’s decider, it was no surprise that both bullpens would be stretched given the workload from the previous games.

UC San Diego had to climb its way out of the loser’s bracket after falling to Cal Poly on Thursday night, and after Cal Poly beat top-seed UC Santa Barbara 4-2 on Friday, the Mustangs got a first shot at the title on Saturday, only to suffer a 12-2 run-rule rout by the Tritons.

In the third matchup between the two teams in four days, something had to give for one or the other.

Corden Pettey took the mound for Cal Poly after not starting a game since May 3.

“We got together (Saturday) night and tried to figure out who was gonna start and who was first out of the pen,” Head Coach Larry Lee said. “And we came up with Corden.”

Pettey delivered, pitching five strong innings with seven strikeouts. His starting performance was dominant enough to earn him a spot on the 2026 Big West Championship All-Tournament Team.

Lee’s description of Pettey’s reaction made it clear he was exactly the right choice.

“You can see it in his body language and emotions that he wanted it,” Lee said.

Cal Poly got on the board early, which was precisely what Lee had emphasized in Saturday’s post-game press conference. He said grabbing the lead first would be a deciding factor.

On Sunday, the Mustangs did just that.

Casey Murray Jr. hit a single in the second inning to bring in Cam Hoiland, giving Cal Poly the early lead. Murray Jr., who went into the game 0-11, finished with three hits on the day, including a double.

However, as Saturday’s game had shown, an early advantage was no guarantee the game would play out in Cal Poly’s favor. The Mustangs had led in the first inning the day before, only to watch it slip away in ugly fashion.

Three-run fifth inning adds comfort

If there was a moment where the game started to feel like it belonged to Cal Poly, it came in the fifth inning.

Dylan Kordic stepped to the plate with two runners on and drove the ball over the fence in right field. The three-run homer turned a 1-0 lead into a 4-0 margin and gave the Mustangs the breathing room the were looking for, albeit just barely.

“The slider was something that (Jake Villar) was going to, especially to lefties all day,” Kordic said. “I knew at some point at the at-bat whether it was the first or third or fourth or fifth pitch, I was gonna get it, and I wasn’t gonna miss it.”

Sixth inning sparks life back in UC San Diego

The comfort the fifth inning provided was short-lived, however, when Cal Poly turned to the bullpen in the sixth.

With Pettey having done his job, Cal Poly decided it was time to hand the ball over to Brady Estes.

But things didn’t go exactly as planned, and the sixth inning was anything but clean.

​UCSD greeted Estes with a leadoff triple, a warning shot that brought the energy in the ballpark to a sharp edge.

​The Tritons scored two runs, and suddenly the four-run cushion Cal Poly had worked so hard to build was looking a lot thinner.

​At that point, Lee had seen enough and turned to Chris Downs — the same pitcher who had already logged innings the day before and was asked to do it all over again.

Downs induced a flyout from leadoff hitter Anthony Potestio to end the threat.

“He gave us exactly what we needed,” Lee said of Pettey. “We didn’t know if we were going to get three or four innings. We got five.”

Cal Poly survives UCSD’s ninth-inning threat

Downs then proceed to throw two 1-2-3 innings in the seventh and eighth, before recording the first out in the ninth, setting down eight straight Triton hitters in the process.

​The ninth inning had all the makings of Saturday’s nightmare playing out again because the Tritons had proved a single run could extend into a long inning.

After a single and a wild pitch put a man on second, Downs got Potestio again on a flyout, and Lee handed the ball to closer Nick Bonn to get the final out and secure the championship.

But UCSD had no intention of going out quietly.

Addison Klepsch greeted Bonn with a double to score Raphael Dunn, and suddenly the tying run was standing on second base.

Lee elected to intentionally walk the dangerous Gabe Camacho and face JC Allen, who drilled the ball to left field, but right at Dante Vachini, who caught the game ending ball to secure the championship, as the Cal Poly players stormed the field in celebration.

“It’s a relief to get it done,” Lee said after the game. “It was a long, long, long week for us. We came out the way we wanted to and had our ups and downs, but were very resilient. We had a lot of special accomplishments by our players, both from a position player standpoint and pitching standpoint. It takes all of us to get through this.”

Cal Poly was led at the plate by Cam Hoiland, who went 6-for-11 (.545), and Ryan Tayman, who was 6-for-15 (.400).

Closer earns tournament MVP

The man Lee handed the ball to in that moment was no stranger to the pressure and proved to be the right handoff.

Bonn had played in three of four of the Big West Championships games, coming in as the reliever to get the job done every time.

Across 2-2/3 innings in consecutive games, he didn’t just hold the line; he became the story of the tournament and earned Big West Championship Tournament MVP honors.

It wasn’t the position he envisioned when he arrived at Cal Poly as a transfer from Dallas Baptist.

“I was coming in just expecting to be a role player guy,” Bonn said. “Maybe a few innings here and there.”

Instead, he helped write the program’s history.

Bonn’s Friday save against UC Santa Barbara tied Cal Poly’s single-season record at 14. Sunday’s championship save broke it outright. Bonn now stands alone at 15 saves in a single season.

“Saves season record? Unbelievable. I can’t believe it,” Bonn said. “Just so grateful to be here.”

The conference championship sends Cal Poly back to the NCAA Regionals for the second consecutive year, where the Mustangs will look to build on last season’s appearance in Eugene, Oregon.

The official tournament bracket will be revealed on Monday at 9 a.m after the 16 sites were announced on Sunday.

This story was originally published May 24, 2026 at 11:52 PM.