Cal Poly places four baseball players on All-Big West First Team
Mike Klan
SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. – Four Mustangs earned All-Big West First Team honors this season, the highest amount of Cal Poly players since 2022, which includes a second consecutive nod for Alejandro Garza to put him one step closer to the revered Three-Time First Team list that has just nine total players in conference history.
Coming into the 2025 season, Cal Poly had a glaring hole at first base, previously filled by fan-favorite and four-year Mustang alumni “Big” Joe Yorke. Despite the question mark, Zach Daudet, a utility player known by teammates for being able to play almost anywhere on the field, stepped into the role and flourished. Through 322 fielding chances, he made just two errors and held a .994 fielding percentage. Despite missing the first half of April due to a blood infection, Daudet fought back into the lineup and finished the regular season with a .362 batting average, 55 hits, 14 doubles, seven home runs, and 22 RBIs.
Ryan Fenn, the team’s most tenured field player, earned an All-Big West honor for his third straight and final season as a Mustang after earning honorable mentions in 2023 and 2024. He currently has a 13-game hitting streak (26-for-53, .491) and racked up 22 multiple-hit games, including 13 three-hit contests. Fenn led the team with 17 doubles and 15 stolen bases, finishing the regular season with a .362 batting average, 76 hits, and 34 RBIs. This is his second consecutive season tallying 70+ hits, double-digit RBIs, and 30+ RBIs.
Sophomore and 2024 Big West Freshman Field Player of the Year, Alejandro Garza earned first team honors for the second consecutive season, following up on his dazzling debut campaign with an even more impressive 2025. Garza’s 83 regular season hits are currently 21st in Division I baseball, and his 31 multi-hit games are tied for third-most in the program’s D1 history. He also finished the regular season second-best on the team for batting average (.366), RBIs (48), and doubles (16) while leading for runs (52). After finishing in 2024 as the second toughest batter to strike out in college baseball, he once again sat near the top of the list in 11th.
Griffin Naess, 2024 Big West Freshman Pitcher of the Year honoree alongside Garza’s field player award, made the first team list this season after being an honorable mention in 2024. As a freshman, he posted a perfect 7-0 record, the most by a Cal Poly freshman since 1996, and went 6-2 in 2025 for a career 13-2 record. Naess started all 14 game-one contests this season and led the team with 81.1 innings pitched and led starters with a 3.65 ERA. He posted seven quality starts (at least 6.0 IP and three or fewer earned runs) and in six of those allowed one run or less.
Two newcomers earned All-Big West Second Team honors, while reliable setup man Jake Torres finally got the recognition he deserves as an elite reliever in the conference. Collins (mentioned above for Buster Posey semifinals) found a true home at his third Big West team and thrived not only as one of the conference’s top sluggers but as one of the country’s best catchers entirely.
True freshman Nate Castellon won the starting shortstop job from day one and has not looked back since. Arguably the conference’s best debut player behind Freshman Field Player of the Year winner Cal State Fullerton’s Carter Johnstone, Castellon earned one Big West Player of the Week honor and finished just ahead of teammate Alejandro Garza with the second-best batting average in the conference (.368). Aiding Cal Poly’s small-ball game, Castellon was also second in the Big West and 11th in Division I baseball for sacrifice bunts (12). The Woodland Hills native ended the regular season with 71 hits, 11 doubles, 46 RBIs, and a team-high 125 fielding assists (.945 fielding percentage).
Lefty reliever Jake Torres was undoubtably Cal Poly’s best and most consistent arm out of the bullpen this season, holding a 2.62 ERA and team-leading 1.03 WHIP while holding opposing batters to a paltry .198 average. In his second season as a Mustang after being the team’s co-leader for appearances in 2024, Torres went on an astonishing run from March 29 to April 22 (eight appearances) without allowing a single run through 18 straight innings. Of his 22 relief appearances this season, 17 of them ended with Cal Poly getting the win.
The most improved player on the team from 2024 to 2025 was Casey Murray Jr., and the senior was rewarded for it with an All-Big West Honorable Mention. He went from a .175 batting average through 27 games just one season ago to ending the 2025 regular season with a .298 clip. One of three Mustangs to play all 53 regular season games, every contest in center field, Murray Jr. had a perfect fielding percentage (1.000) through 136 chances and has not made a single error through his Cal Poly career thus far. “Boogie,” as he is affectionately known, had hits in 45 of Cal Poly’s 53 games and totaled 64 hits, nine doubles, and six home runs.
Junior catcher Jack Collins who made the 13-player semifinal list for the Wichita Sports Commission’s 2025 Buster Posey Award. Following Ryan Stafford’s finalist standing in last season’s voting, Collins is the second consecutive Mustang to make it this far and hopes to join Stafford as the only Cal Poly finalist nominees in program history.
Collins, a junior transfer by way of CSUN, Saddleback College, and Long Beach State, had major shoes to fill stepping into the role of catcher at Cal Poly. Not only was he replacing Ryan Stafford, a 2024 MLB Draft 5th Round Pick and Buster Posey Award finalist, but some of the program’s best players in its Division I history have sat behind the plate.
The backstop has done all the right things since becoming Cal Poly’s opening day catcher, finishing the regular season second in the Big West for RBIs (56) and runners caught stealing (18) and fourthin home runs (12) and doubles (16). Notably, Collins is responsible for winning home runs in upset results over ranked opponents Texas A&M and Oregon State.
Collins opened his Mustang career on a blazing pace with a 14-game hitting streak (23-for-57, .404), three home runs, and 19 RBIs.
Alongside fellow All-Big West honorees and teammates Alejandro Garza and Casey Murray Jr., Collins is just one of three Mustangs to play all 53 games of the regular season.
(Article courtesy of Cal Poly Athletics).