Women’s basketball will go into the weekend with a perfect 4-0 record at home.
Jacob Lauing
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The Cal Poly women’s and men’s basketball teams will be in action at home this weekend, while the wrestling team will compete at the Las Vegas Invitational. Here’s a look at all three contests.
Women’s basketball
The Cal Poly women’s basketball team returns to Mott Athletics Center this Saturday looking for its third straight win as the Mustangs take on Cal State Bakersfield in a 5 p.m. matchup.
Coming off a sweep of Akron and San Francisco in the Cal Poly Holiday Beach Classic this past weekend, the Mustangs will seek to move above .500 for the first time this season. Cal Poly began the year with three straight losses, including an 86-51 drubbing at then-No. 5 Stanford, before winning four of its next five games.
With their two wins in the Holiday Beach Classic, the Mustangs now own a perfect 4-0 record at home entering Saturday’s contest.
“I think we’re playing really great right now,” junior guard Ariana Elegado said. “We’re on a run right now and our bench play has been good. Last week, we had tough practice where all we did was rebounding drills and I think that helped us out a lot.”
Senior center Molly Schlemer leads Cal Poly averaging 17.3 points per game and leads the Big West with 11.1 rebounds per game. She followed up her 23-point performance against Akron with 21 points against San Francisco.
Junior guard Ariana Elegado averaged 15.5 points per contest, while senior guard Jonae Ervin netted 13.1 per game this season.
Cal State Bakersfield enters the game with a 2-4 record and is coming off an 85-66 loss to UC Riverside on Tuesday.
Junior guard Tyonna Outland leads the Roadrunners averaging 21.5 points per game and was named to her first Western Atheltic Conference Player of the Week honor this past week. Bataba Zempare leads the team with 12 boards per game.
“The Roadrunners are a fast-paced team,” head coach Faith Mimnaugh said. “I think for us to have any kind of success we have to have great transition defense. We have to limit their transition and limit their penetration. They have a better post presence than they’ve had in the past couple of years … I think we have an advantage with our size inside and we’ll try to exploit that.”
Men’s basketball
The Cal Poly men’s basketball team returns home with a 7 p.m. game against Santa Clara immediately following the women’s game Saturday.
The Mustangs (2-5) dropped two of three games at the Global Sports Harwood Challenge in Eugene, Ore. this past weekend, including an 82-61 loss to then-No.14 Oregon on the final night of the tournament. The Mustangs opened the Challenge with a 70-43 victory over North Dakota before losing a tight decision to Pacific the following day. Cal Poly finished the tourney with a 1-2 record.
The Mustangs are paced by senior forward Chris Eversley’s 13.3 points and 7.7 rebounds per game. Sophomore transfer David Nwaba averages 10.6 points per game, while senior guard Kyle Odister leads the team shooting 30 percent from behind the arc.
Santa Clara (2-4) is coming off four consecutive losses, but will look to end that streak against Cal State Bakersfield on Thursday before heading to San Luis Obispo.
Wrestling
The Cal Poly wrestling team will head to Nevada this weekend for the 32nd Cliff Keen Las Vegas Invitational, which kicks off at 9 a.m. Friday.
Cal Poly placed 21st at the tournament a year ago, with Devon Lotito notching a third place finish at 133 pounds. The sophomore is still looking for his first win of the 2013-14 season.
On the other hand, junior Dominic Kastl is undefeated with a perfect 4-0 record. After missing all of last year with a lower back injury, Kastl began this season with a victory over CSU Bakersfield’s Dalton Kelley, who placed fifth at the Pac-12 championships this past season.
“I knew it was going to be a hard match,” Kastl said. “It was my first match back and I knew I wanted to make a statement. I came back and I got the win.”
Kastl will have his hands full once again this weekend as he takes on Oklahoma’s Andrew Howe, who has recorded three top-three finishes at the NCAA Division I tournament during his career.
Maximilian Schneider is also undefeated on the year, having won all six of his duels and claiming the title at the Roadrunner Open on Nov. 17. At 157 pounds, the redshirt freshman is ranked No. 19 in the country by Intermat.
Schneider, Kastl and Lotito are joined by seven other wrestlers, including Britain Longmire at 125 pounds, Colt Shorts at 141, Blake Kastl at 149, Sohrab Movahedi at 165, Sean Dougherty at 184, Nicolas Johnson at 197 and Spencer Empey in the heavyweight division.
Shorts will face Ohio State’s Logan Stieber, currently ranked first in the country at 141 pounds.
“This is the best of the best,” Kastl said. “This coming weekend we’re going to see numerous guys in the top 10. I’m going to have to battle.”
Stephan Teodosescu and Trent Merfeld contributed to this article.