Cal Poly Baseball continued their hot stretch on Tuesday with a 12-6 non-conference win over Pepperdine.
The win over the Waves (12-37, 6-15 West Coast Conference) comes as the Mustangs (32-19, 17-7 Big West) ramp up for their two most crucial Big West Conference series of the year.
Cal Poly currently sits behind two teams for the Big West crown. They are three games back of first place and No. 22 UC Santa Barbara and one game behind No. 15 UC Irvine.
The Mustangs took two out of three games in each of their three-game series against the Gauchos and Anteaters earlier in the season. The Green and Gold will need help from UC Santa Barbara’s and UC Irvine’s opponents to secure the Big West title.
With the win, Cal Poly are winners of 10 of their last 13 games played and will look to take that momentum into their next two conference series.
To secure Tuesday’s win, the Mustang offense picked right back up where they left off, scoring 12 runs on 12 hits.
After a first-inning sacrifice fly from freshman designated hitter Braxton Thomas, Cal Poly scored two more in the fourth inning off of junior outfielder Zach Daudet and redshirt junior second baseman Ryan Fenn to take a 3-0 lead.
Thomas has worked his way up the lineup to the three-hole after his stellar start to his collegiate career.
Through his first seven games, the Patterson, CA native sported a .357 batting average. Since then, however, Thomas’ production has plateaued and he only has three hits in his last 21 at-bats (.142 average.)
After Pepperdine responded in their half of the fourth, junior outfielder Cam Hoiland broke the game open on a three-run home run to right field to take a convincing 7-1 lead.
Hoiland and Daudet both led the team in RBIs on Tuesday with three each.
Despite a late-inning comeback effort from the Waves in the eighth and ninth innings, the Mustangs had already given themselves enough of a cushion to secure the 12-6 win.
Cal Poly will now turn their attention toward their first of two crucial Big West matchups starting off with a three-game road series against UC San Diego.
The Mustangs are still in the mix for the Big West Conference crown but will need help from Cal State Fullerton who host UC Irvine and CSU Northridge who host UC Santa Barbara this weekend.
Cal Poly starts their three-game set against the Tritons on Friday, May 17 at 6 p.m. in La Jolla, CA.