SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. \u2014 After a long and grueling regular season, the Cal Poly Mustangs (23-7, 14-4 Big West) have earned their postseason charge into The Hawaiian Islands presents the 2025 Outrigger Big West Women’s Volleyball Championship.<\/p>\n
The Mustangs secured a second-place finish, clinching the No. 2 seed and the rewards that come with it: a first-round bye and an automatic berth in the Semifinals. This capped a historic regular season under Head Coach Caroline Walters, as the team’s 23 wins marked its highest tally during her tenure, featuring a fourth consecutive season of 14 conference victories.<\/p>\n
The tournament bracket narrowed Wednesday night. At the LBS Financial Credit Union Pyramid, No. 3 Long Beach State and No. 6 UC Irvine battled for the right to face Cal Poly, while No. 4 UC Santa Barbara took on No. 5 CSUN for a shot at top-seeded UC Davis. Both favored seeds swept their matches, setting the stage for Friday’s semifinals. UC Davis clashes with UCSB at 3 p.m., followed by the Mustangs’ showdown with Long Beach State at 6 p.m.<\/p>\n
This sets up a high-stakes rubber match. The Mustangs and the Beach split their regular-season series, with each team defending its home court. The Mustangs will be confident, however, having most recently gotten the better of Long Beach State in a decisive sweep just a few weeks ago to clinch their Big West postseason berth.<\/p>\n
History is also on the Mustangs\u2019 minds. As the No. 1 seed in last season\u2019s championship, Cal Poly knocked out No. 6 Long Beach State via a sweep in the conference semifinals and will look to repeat that result, even on the Beach’s home floor.<\/p>\n
The Mustangs ride a wave of individual accolades into the tournament. On Tuesday, the Big West announced six Mustangs among its all-conference honorees. The team was led by setter Emme Bullis and the versatile Kendall Beshear, who both earned First Team nods.<\/p>\n
Bullis received her fourth career all-conference honor after a pair of honorable mentions in 2022-23 and a second-team placement last season. She also notched her third career season of 1,000-plus assists, becoming just the second Big West player to reach that mark this year, and tallied a double-double in Saturday’s regular-season finale. Beshear was a dominant and versatile six-rotation player, serving as both a primary offensive weapon and a key defender.<\/p>\n
They were joined by Chloe Leluge (Second Team), Annabelle Thalken (Honorable Mention), Emma Fredrick (Honorable Mention), and Charlotte Kelly (All-Freshman Team), rounding out the impressive haul of All-Big West honors.<\/p>\n
Just last Friday, Cal Poly delivered its most dominant performance of 2025, sweeping Cal State Fullerton by a staggering 32-point margin to secure the No. 2 seed. Though they fell to UC Irvine in straight sets in the regular-season finale, the Mustangs are now fully focused on the postseason, where a championship and auto bid to the NCAA Tournament are the ultimate goals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. \u2014 After a long and grueling regular season, the Cal Poly Mustangs (23-7, 14-4…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":72934,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[131,133,132],"class_list":["post-72933","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\/72933","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=72933"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72933\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72934"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}