Sports

Mustangs don't horse around in 2006-07

Ryan Chartrand

Was there ever a more exciting year to be a Mustang Maniac?

It’s hard to believe that only two of Cal Poly’s 20 intercollegiate sports programs (baseball and track and field) are still in season.

And with less than three weeks until final exams and only 12 editions of the Mustang Daily remaining after today, it’s already time to reflect on what some might argue was the best full year for athletics at Cal Poly since the school moved to the Division I level in 1994-95.

Here are only a few of the many feats accomplished by various teams this year:

The men’s cross country team won its fourth straight Big West Conference title, took ninth in the NCAA West Regional Meet and finished 13th at the NCAA Championships.

At the forefront of those efforts was Cal Poly’s Male Athlete of the Year, All-American junior Phillip Reid, who was 21st at nationals.

The volleyball team reached the second round of the NCAA Tournament, but that was only the culmination of its endeavors.

The Mustangs earned their first Big West title ever and their first outright conference crown of any kind since 1984, went 23-6 for their most wins since going 31-8 in 1985, entered a national ranking for the first time since 1999, won a tournament match for the first time since 2000 and earned their first tournament berth since 2002.

Sophomore outside hitter Kylie Atherstone was named Big West Co-Player of the Year, although she should have taken the award outright and been named an All-American. She and junior setter Chelsea Hayes then reached the semifinals of the Collegiate Beach Volleyball Championships in April.

With 32 wins in the last four years, the Cal Poly football team’s 16 seniors capped a cluster of more victories in a four-year stretch than any other senior class in the 91-year history of the program.

Also this season, the Mustangs (7-4) beat rival UC Davis for the first time since 2003 and knocked off a Football Bowl Subdivision (formerly Division I-A) team (San Diego State) for the first time since 2003. They also had a player (Courtney Brown) chosen in the NFL Draft for the third straight season and two seniors (Brown and Kyle Shotwell) in recent NFL minicamps.

Bigger picture?

How about Alex G. Spanos Stadium finally being completed after more than 13 months of construction? If you haven’t seen the illuminated stadium or glowing Mustang Memorial Plaza at night, it’s even more beautiful than in the daytime. The entire package will serve as an iconic symbol of the football program for years to come.

The women’s soccer team went 10-7-3, lost only one conference game and reached the title game of the Big West Tournament.

The men’s soccer team went from 6-14 in 2005 to 7-8-4 in 2006. And it did it playing in a conference that included national champion UC Santa Barbara.

The men’s basketball team went 19-11, set a Division I record for wins in a season, posted its best Big West winning percentage ever (.643), had its best record and most wins overall since going 19-9 at the Division II level in 1991-92, went 12-2 at home and won 13 of its final 16 games.

Whew. That’s called a breakout year.

Cal Poly, by the way, had a lead with less than 13 minutes remaining in the Big West Tournament title game, which saw Long Beach State punch a ticket to March Madness.

Although it still hasn’t had a winning season since going 15-12 in 1991-92, the women’s basketball team bounced back from an injury-plagued, 6-13 start to win a program-record eight straight Big West games and nine of its last 11 overall.

Cal Poly posted its best Big West winning percentage ever (.643), had senior forward Jessica Eggleston named first-team All-Big West for the second straight year and two newcomers (Tamara Wells and Ashlee Stewart) named to the conference’s All-Freshmen Team.

The wrestling team finished 27th at the NCAA Championships, had an All-American at 133 pounds (senior Darrell Vasquez), sent five grapplers to NCAAs and went 5-4 in the Pac-10.

The softball team reached the NCAA Tournament for the first time after winning its first Big West title.

Cal Poly (39-17) was led all season by its USA Softball Collegiate Player of the Year finalist, senior center fielder Lisa Modglin. The school’s Female Athlete of the Year finished the regular season second nationally among all Division I players in batting average (.488) and slugging percentage (.951).

The baseball team clinched its fourth straight winning season with a 3-1 home win over perennial Big West power Cal State Fullerton for a historic 2-1 series victory Sunday.

The weekend marked Cal Poly’s first series victory over the Titans since 1973. That’s four years before the original Star Wars hit the big screen!

The Mustangs bounced back from an 0-5 start and currently stand 29-24 overall and 10-8 in Big West play. And they’ve done it playing in a cutthroat conference that features three teams in the top 17 of Monday’s Collegiate Baseball Newspaper poll and while playing with what BoydsWorld.com ranks the fifth-toughest schedule among 291 Division I teams.

Not bad at all.

The men’s tennis team went 4-0 in the Big West before bowing out to UCSB in the conference tournament title match.

First-team all-conference honors went to Matt Baca and Darryn Young in singles and Kyle Roybal and Baca in doubles.

The women’s tennis team upset 32nd-ranked UC Irvine on its way to an appearance in the Big West tourney title match.

Brittany Blalock was a shoe-in for Big West Freshman of the Year after posting a 21-15 singles record.

It’s not often that a freshman reaches postseason play in an individual sport, but that was the case for men’s golfer Geoff Gonzalez, who tied for 53rd in NCAA West Regional competition Saturday.

That capped a season in which Cal Poly finished second in the Big West Championships – three strokes short of winning a second straight conference crown.

The Mustangs won the Cuesta Title and Pacific Coast intercollegiates in consecutive weeks. At the latter, junior Chris Kirk shot a school-record round of 64 as part of a school-record 199 total to top the leaderboard.

The scary part?

The whole team returns next season.

The track and field team has been paced literally and figuratively by Reid, who set the Big West Championships record in the 1,500-meter run in 3 minutes, 42.54 seconds May 12.

That mark eclipsed the 1978 time posted by Steve Scott, who ran for UC Irvine before competing in three Olympics.

Also at the Big West Championships, Sharon Day won the high jump (6 feet, 1/2-inch), Eggleston the triple jump (40-8 3/4) and Lea Wallace the 800 in 2:09.56.

A week earlier, James Nunno won the Big West decathlon title.

The Mustangs send a fleet of athletes to the NCAA West Regional Meet in Eugene, Ore., Friday through Saturday. Stay tuned.

If this were a court case, that would be a mountain of evidence.

Evidence to suggest that this was the most successful season across the board for Cal Poly athletics since moving to the Division I level in 1994-95.

But there are other years to consider.

Take, for instance, 1997, when the football and softball programs generated talk of the playoffs for the first time since going DI. The football team was 10-1 that year, and despite the fact seven of the past 16 Male Athletes of the Year have come from the football program, it was Sean Brown of the track and field program who won the award in 1997. That shows how diverse the success in men’s athletics was nine years ago.

There are other, more recent milestones – Day winning an NCAA Outdoor high-jump title in the spring of 2005 and football reaching the I-AA playoffs for the first time in the fall of 2005.

This column could go on for days (not that it already hasn’t) discussing the 1980 Division II national champion football team, the nationally ranked mid-1980s volleyball teams and the dozens of wrestlers who have been All-Americans.

But regardless of whether this year ranks as the best since the school went DI, can anyone argue it was the most memorable?

What do you think is the best year for athletics at Cal Poly since the school went Division I in 1994-95?

May 22, 2007