{"id":323120,"date":"2026-05-19T17:22:01","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T17:22:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/323120\/"},"modified":"2026-05-19T17:22:01","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T17:22:01","slug":"dirtbags-drop-series-opener-at-cal-poly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/323120\/","title":{"rendered":"Dirtbags Drop Series Opener At Cal Poly"},"content":{"rendered":"

SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. — Long Beach State totaled 10 hits Thursday night but could not contain Cal Poly’s seventh-inning rally.
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\nLong Beach State struck first in the opening inning as Kaiden Smaka<\/a> tripled to right field and later scored on a Smith Chandler<\/a> single through the middle to give the Dirtbags an early 1-0 lead.
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\nCal Poly answered immediately in the bottom half after Alejandro Garza singled and advanced into scoring position before Casey Murray Jr. tied the game with an RBI fielder’s choice.
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\nThe Mustangs took the lead in the second inning. Cam Hoiland opened the frame with a walk before Dante Vachini singled through the right side. Nate Castellon followed with an RBI single and Garza added an RBI double to extend the lead to 3-1. Ryan Tayman later drove in another run with a sacrifice fly to push the advantage to 4-1.
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\nAfter the second inning, Long Beach State pitching settled in and kept Cal Poly off the bases entirely through the fourth, fifth and sixth innings. Caleb Anderson<\/a> helped stabilize the game out of the bullpen as the Dirtbags worked to climb back into contention.
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\nLong Beach State cut into the deficit in the sixth inning behind the long ball. Dylan Lina<\/a> launched his 11th home run of the season to left field before Conner Stewart<\/a> followed later in the inning with his first homer of the year, trimming the Cal Poly lead to 4-3.
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\nWith momentum beginning to shift toward the Dirtbags, Cal Poly broke the game open in the seventh inning.
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\nDylan Kordic and Tayman each drew walks before Murray Jr. loaded the bases with an infield single. Jake Downing brought home a run on a groundout before Gavin Spiridonoff added an RBI fielder’s choice. Hoiland followed with a sacrifice bunt RBI and Vachini delivered an RBI double down the left field line. Castellon later drove in another run on a groundout while a wild pitch capped the six-run inning and stretched the Mustang lead to 10-3.
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\nCal Poly added one more insurance run in the eighth when Tayman connected on a solo home run to left field, for the 11-3 lead.
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\nDespite the loss, the Dirtbags finished with 10 hits compared to seven for the Mustangs. Chandler and Lina each recorded two hits while Stewart added a two-hit performance with his first home run of the season. Smaka tripled and scored in the first inning while Ty Borgogno<\/a> and Damon Valdez<\/a> also contributed hits. Justin Roulston<\/a> reached base twice in the loss.
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\nThe Dirtbags will continue the series Friday with first pitch being at 6:05pm and streamed on ESPN+.
\n\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. — Long Beach State totaled 10 hits Thursday night but could not contain Cal…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":323121,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[131,133,132],"class_list":["post-323120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=323120"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323120\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/323121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=323120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=323120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=323120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}