Graig MantleTwo months ago, the postseason was something the Cal Poly baseball team wasn’t even considering.
But after winning 19 of their final 27 games – including a season-ending road sweep of rival UC Santa Barbara over the weekend – there were rumblings that the sub-committee was considering the Mustangs for the NCAA Tournament.
On Monday, though, Cal Poly learned its season was over when the 64-team field was unveiled live on ESPN and the Mustangs were nowhere to be found.
For the first time since 1996, though, four teams from the Big West Conference are in the tournament. That quartet includes Cal State Fullerton, which finished 33-23 overall and fifth at 10-11 in the Big West. The Titans leapfrogged fourth-place Cal Poly (32-24, 13-8 Big West), which took two of three from Cal State Fullerton from May 18 to 20.
Still, the Mustangs were not seething after being passed up in a manner similar to 2005, when Cal Poly was 36-20 overall, tied for second in the Big West at 14-7 and was left out despite the fact the team the Mustangs were tied with (Long Beach State) didn’t only get in, but hosted a regional.
“I felt like we had a chance because we were ahead of (Cal State Fullerton) in the conference,” Cal Poly sophomore right-hander Thomas Eager said Monday in a phone interview. “We didn’t play that well in our nonconference. I think if we would have done that, it would have been a different story.”
Cal Poly junior right fielder Grant Desme agreed.
“We put ourselves in a position to have a chance to play in a regional,” Desme said Monday in a phone interview. “There were big games we lost that if we won, we probably would have had that outcome.”
Specifically, it was likely a stretch in which Cal Poly went 0-6 at Rice and against Oregon State from March 16 to 26 that kept it out of the postseason. The Mustangs came out of that streak 13-16 overall and having lost the six said games by a combined score of 46-18 – against teams ranked Nos. 2 (Rice) and 29 (Oregon State) in the final Collegiate Baseball Newspaper poll.
That, in the end, didn’t bode well in the selection committee’s eyes.
Neither did the fact Cal Poly ranked 60th in Monday’s Ratings Percentage Index figures posted at BoydsWorld.com, which simulates the NCAA’s RPI formula used to determine which teams are worthy of the postseason. Cal State Fullerton, meanwhile, was 31st in the RPI.
Because Cal Poly was swept by Rice, Oregon State and the University of San Diego (ranked sixth) – three of eight opponents who made the tournament – its RPI dipped.
Although he could not be reached for comment Monday, Cal Poly head coach Larry Lee said in a statement released by the school: “It’s always disappointing when you don’t get the opportunity to take your team to postseason competition. But we’ll just have to work that much harder to eventually earn a berth. We struggled in the first half of the season and, looking back, there were a number of games where we had a chance to get some quality wins against the nation’s top teams.”
Nonetheless, NCAA Division I Baseball Championship Selection Committee chairman and Mississippi State athletics director Larry Templeton told Baseball America on Monday that Cal Poly, Gonzaga and BYU were all discussed before being left out.
“They were all there at the end,” Templeton told Baseball America. “We spent a lot of conversation on two of those three. I would say that one of those came off the board earlier than that (final 10 in). We spent a lot of time. They were there. Gonzaga, the 5-14 nonconference record against the top 50 probably hurt them. Cal Poly was 5-16 against the top 50. Those issues were all on the table.”
One thing Cal Poly had going for it was a strength of schedule ranked fifth-toughest among 291 Division I teams, according to BoydsWorld.com. The Big West, in fact, had all eight of its teams in the top 12 toughest schedules.
But in the end, that just wasn’t enough for the committee.
As such, the Mustangs join a litany of Cal Poly squads to be controversially left out of postseason play since the school moved to the Division I level in 1994-95 – namely football and softball in 1997, baseball in 2002, football and baseball in 2004, baseball, softball and volleyball in 2005 and softball in 2006.
Still, there was reason to smile Monday for a Cal Poly team that won eight of its last nine games and five of its final seven Big West series.
“We knew coming in we were young and were going to struggle early,” said Desme, a favorite for Big West Player of the Year who missed the final six games of the season with a fractured right wrist. “We put it together at the end of the year.”
Eager agreed.
“I’m really excited with the season we had,” said Eager, who finished the season 11-3 with a 3.43 ERA. “We had a pretty promising season. It’s going to be better (next year).”
Both Desme and Eager said Monday they still anticipate leaving the program next year after learning the results of the Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft, which runs from June 7 to 8.
Desme is expected to go as early as the second round after batting .405 with 15 home runs and 53 RBI this season.
“I’m really excited,” Desme said of the draft. “It’s something I’ve been working for ever since I’ve been a little kid.”
Of his right wrist, which was hit by a pitch during an at-bat in an 8-5 home win over UC Davis on May 13, Desme said: “It’s getting better.”
Eager is eligible for the draft because he has already used a redshirt and is a junior academically.
“I’ve heard pretty good things,” Eager said of the draft, for which he has been contacted by scouts and executives from every major league club. “I’ve been telling the scouts I want to go in the top five (rounds). . It’s very exciting. It’s huge for me. I’ve thought about it since I was little. I don’t know what team I’m going to go on, but it’s really a dream come true.”