From a club championship to a tryout for the first professional women's baseball league in more than 75 years, four Cal Poly student-athletes are trying to be a part of history.
“I definitely take a lot of pride in it to help further along women's baseball because even from when I was a kid, it's come such a long way," explained the founder of the Cal Poly Women's Club Baseball team, Arwen McCullough.
McCullough started playing baseball at the age of 7 after watching her beloved San Francisco Giants win a World Series in 2010.
“My parents said they've never seen me sit still for that long in front of the TV," she remembered.
McCullough was in a league of her own, arriving at Cal Poly in 2022 with a goal of trying to bring others into the sport, so she started a club team on the campus, enlisting the help of former Cal Poly pitcher and current director of Mustang success, Shannon Stephens, to be a coach and adviser. Stephens was drafted by the Florida Marlins in 1995 and played/coached overseas in Sweden.
“It was, it was just neat how, how much Arwen really wanted it," Stephens recalled. "I felt like if I could just help out a little bit, baseball's done so much for me and it sounds like it's done a lot for her.”
In 2025, they won a club national championship. Now, McCullough and three of her teammates, Ginger Duncan, Kendra Wise and Katherine Hennig, are poised for another challenge and opportunity, a chance to be a part of the first professional women’s baseball league.
“I would love to, to to make the cut," McCullough said.
But regardless of the outcome, she gets to be a part of history.
Only 150 players will have the chance to join the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League with tryouts this weekend in Washington, D.C. where the MLB's Washington Nationals play. With the help of those in the San Luis Obispo community like Blues head coach Dean Treanor, McCullough is working hard to have her best pitches and best at-bats pay off.
“To get an opportunity to play in that league, great," Stephens said. "If they don't, they still are a select few try to do it.”
“It just makes me proud," McCullough said. "It all, it makes me want to keep breaking barriers or continuing to build these leagues and stuff for young me and those other little girls that love baseball, to give them opportunities to play professionally, play in college and continue playing the game.”
