Ryan Tayman tied the school record for home runs in a single season, Gavin Spiridonoff shattered a 2-2 tie with a decisive three-run blast and Josh Volmerding earned a quality start with six innings on the mound for his first win of the season.

Those are three of the stars for Cal Poly, but there were many others, in the Mustangs’ march to their first NCAA regional title in five tries and a berth in next weekend’s Super Regionals.

Coach Larry Lee’s Mustangs recorded their 23rd come-from-behind victory of the season, a 5-2 triumph over Saint Mary’s for the championship of the Los Angeles Regional on Sunday night inside UCLA’s fabled Jackie Robinson Stadium.

“Great weekend. Hard-fought games. Four really, really good teams,” said Lee. “Our players responded, and it was different guys each game, so it was a total team effort. Josh, Ryan and Gavin supplied a lot of the theatrics to get us over the top and win this regional.”

Cal Poly overcame an early 2-0 deficit with a run in the fifth inning on Nate Castellon’s RBI single to left field and four more in the sixth on Tayman’s 18th home run of the year and Spiridonoff’s fourth homer of his freshman campaign with two runners on base.

Volmerding went one more inning on the mound, scattering five hits in his six-inning stint with two runs, one walk and a season-high seven strikeouts before turning things over to Corden Pettey (one shutout inning) and Nick Bonn (two scoreless, hitless frames) for his nation-leading 17th save.

Cal Poly won’t know who it will play or when and where the Super Regional will be held until Monday. The Mustangs will play the winner of the Morgantown Regional, which will be decided Monday when host West Virginia plays Kentucky in the “extra” game of the double-elimination event. Super Regionals are best-of-three series played Friday through Sunday or Saturday through Monday.

West Virginia, an 11-9 loser to Kentucky on Saturday, scored five times in the ninth inning to turn a 9-6 deficit into an 11-9 win over the Wildcats on Sunday night, forcing another contest Monday at 3 p.m. Top-seeded West Virginia would host the Super Regional with a victory. If Kentucky wins, the NCAA will decide who hosts the Super Regional. Both Cal Poly and Kentucky were seeded third in their regional tournament.

Volmerding missed six weeks of the 2026 season with a lower body injury, returning to the mound May 2 by pitching one inning in relief at UC Irvine. He progressed to 2 1/3 innings in starts at Cal State Fullerton, three frames versus Long Beach State at home and four innings in the Big West tournament against UC San Diego in Irvine.

Lee and pitching coach Seth Moir were hoping to get at best five innings out of the junior southpaw Sunday against Saint Mary’s in the Los Angeles Regional championship final. They got six.

Sign up to receive headlines in your inbox!

Breaking News | Local Sports | Daily Headlines | Local Obituaries | Weather | Local Offers

The 6-4, 210-pound third-year Mustang threw 81 pitches, allowed single runs in the second and third frames and retired the Gaels in order in the fourth and sixth innings. He danced around a leadoff single in the first inning and a one-out triple in the fifth.

“The process has been slow,” Volmerding said of his time off. “Just ramping up those pitches every week, getting back in the swing of things, and tonight it all just clicked. It happened to be at the right time.”

Volmerding threw 45 sliders, with 11 swing and misses, and 75 percent strikes.

“That slider’s new this year, and with my knee earlier this year, it was hard to throw,” said Volmerding, who threw eight no-hit innings at UC Davis last year before giving up a hit opening the ninth. “Now that I’m back fully healthy, it’s comfortable to throw, one of my favorite pitches. It started out pretty good. We got some swing and miss on it, so we just stuck with it the whole game.”

Pettey retired the side in order in the seventh before allowing a walk and single opening the eighth. Bonn was summoned from the bullpen and retired all five batters he faced for his fifth save in his last five trips to the mound.

The senior right-hander worked out of the eighth-inning jam with a fly ball to right field and a 5-4-3 double play, then notched two strikeouts sandwiched around a grounder to shortstop in the ninth to close out the game and touch off a wild celebration and dogpile near the mound.

Cal Poly was competing in a Division I regional for the second straight year and fifth time in program history. Lee is now 8-8 in regional play after going 3-0 in the Los Angeles Regional.

“Yeah, it’s pretty emotional for me,” said the San Luis Obispo High School graduate who coached at nearby Cuesta College for 16 seasons before taking over the helm of the Cal Poly program in 2003. “I had my wife and daughter in the stands. My son was watching back in Minneapolis, and it’s cool.

“It’s just a lot of hard work over the years, representing San Luis Obispo County, representing Cal Poly,” Lee added. “It’s a pretty great moment, so there’s a lot of emotion that goes into it for me.”

Cal Poly is the first Big West team to advance to a Super Regional since Cal State Fullerton in 2018. The Titans claimed the Stanford Regional title before falling to Washington in three games at Goodwin Field.