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Cal Poly baseball gears up for home opener

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The Cal Poly baseball team is preparing for its home-opening series for the 2019 season against the Cal Bears Friday, Saturday, and Sunday at Baggett Stadium.

Cal Poly has four games under its belt already, all on the road. The Mustangs were swept by Oklahoma in a three-game series this past weekend but rebounded on Tuesday night with a 7-1 victory over CSU Bakersfield.

Early season struggles have plagued the Mustangs the past couple of years. They began 2017 with a 3-11 record and 2018 with a 6-10 mark. But both seasons, though, ended with a second place finish in the Big West Conference.

Head coach Larry Lee hopes his squad, which returns 18 letter winners from a year ago, can get hot during non-conference play to potentially set themselves up for their first postseason appearance since 2014.

“We don’t want to put ourselves in a situation like we have the last couple of years where we haven’t won enough games early on and it puts all the hones on winning the Big West Conference championship,” Lee said. “That’s always a tall task for anybody.”

“We always have really good out-of-conference schedules, facing some tough teams and sometimes it’s hard to get those wins early in the season having some young guys in the lineup adjusting to college baseball,” junior center fielder Bradlee Beesley added. “This year we can hopefully do better.”

First pitch between Cal Poly and Cal is scheduled for 6:00 P.M. on Friday, 4:00 P.M. on Saturday, and 1:00 P.M. on Sunday.