SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. — After winning its fourth Big West Championship title, the Cal Poly beach volleyball team earned the No. 6 seed Sunday into next week’s NCAA Championship in Gulf Shores, Ala.
The Mustangs (30-8) will face No. 11 seed GCU in the first round on Friday at 2 p.m. PT/4 p.m. in Gulf Shores. The match will be televised live on ESPN2 and ESPN+. The winner will move on to play in the second round Saturday at 10 a.m. PT/12 p.m. in Gulf Shores against the winner of No. 3 seed UCLA and No. 14 seed Tulane.
The second round and semifinals will both be played on Saturday. Cal Poly’s semifinal match would take place at 12:30 p.m. PT. The championship match will take place Sunday, May 3 at 9:30 a.m. PT.
Friday and Saturday’s matches will be on ESPN2 while Sunday’s national championship match will air on ESPN. All the matches and specific courts can be streamed on ESPN+ as well.
This will be Cal Poly’s sixth trip to the NCAA Championship and third in a row. The Mustangs previously made it in 2019, 2021, and 2022, 2024, and 2025. In each of the last two seasons, the Mustangs have reached the NCAA Championship Semifinals.
Cal Poly is 30-8 this season with all eight losses coming at the hands of top five teams. They have 11 wins over ranked teams. The Mustangs bring a ton of experience to Gulf Shores as all 10 of the Mustangs’ players have been to the NCAA Championship before. Seven of the 10 players in the lineup have at least 75 career wins and five have been an AVCA All-American at least once at one point in their career
The Mustangs’ top five pairs have a combined record of 126-17. The No. 1 pair of Ella Connor and Erin Inskeep are 31-5. Connor is the program’s all-time career wins leader currently with 111.
The No. 2 pair of Logan Walter and Izzy Martinez have been outstanding this year at 34-3. Earlier this season, they became the winningest pair in Cal Poly history with 64 career wins currently. They also just broke the program’s single season pair wins record with 34 currently. Martinez currently has 110 career wins and is No. 2 in program history in that category.
The No. 3 pair of Quinn Perry and Ashleigh Adams are 26-4, 23-3 at the No. 3 spot specifically. Adams just reached 100 career wins over the weekend. The No. 4 pair of Elise Lenahan and Julia Westby are 28-3 and have won eight matches in a row. Westby also reached 100 career wins over the weekend. The No. 5 pair of Peyton Dueck and Katie Clevenger are 7-2 together this season. Dueck has 14 wins total this season combined.
The 2026 NCAA Championships will consist of 16 teams, eight automatic berths and eight at-large selections. Cal Poly is one of two teams from the Big West in it as Long Beach State received an at-large berth.
