Jenny Condon’s Cal Poly softball team had high hopes for 2017. After winning nine of their final ten non-conference games, Cal Poly had started the season 24-8 going into conference play and were ranked in the national top-25.

Cal Poly softball will see maybe their all-time best player move-on to play professionally next season. By Owen Main

But conference play proved difficult. After winning series against UCSB and eventual champ Cal State Fullerton, the Mustangs were swept by Long Beach State and lost a series to CSUN en route to a disappointing 10-11 record in the Big West.

Their strong start wasn’t forgotten though. Cal Poly was selected to play in the National Invitational Softball Championship — sort of an NIT for softball. The Mustangs won their group and traveled to Virginia for the final round of the tournament, where they finished their season by losing two out of three. 

The three victories in the NISC were their first postseason wins in eight years.

The final season of Sierra Hyland’s career was another stellar one. Hyland finished with the most Big West Pitcher of the Week awards and Big West Athlete of the Week awards in the conference’s history. She leads the conference all-time in appearances (161), In an elimination game during the postseason tournament, Hyland threw her third career perfect game. She was 24-13 this season. Oh yeah, at the plate she hit .352 with the highest slugging percentage (.484) and on-base percentage (.398) 

Hyland wasn’t the only Mustang to have a standout year. Chelsea Convissar, a junior shortstop, hit .319. Crimson Kaiser and Stephanie Heyward rounded out the list of Mustangs with over a .300 batting average. 

Along with Hyland, Ashley Tornio, Shawna McDonough, and Courtney Tyler are departing seniors. When you have a transcendent player like the Mustangs have for four seasons, how you bounce back from losing that player can be indicative of the program’s health and depth. Five juniors return next season, including pitcher Lindsey Chalmers. Chalmers had a great season in her own right with a 13-8 record and ERA under 2.00. After missing out on an NCAA Tournament goal that was in reach this season, it will be worth watching how Condon’s team bounces back next season. 

Sierra Hyland is the most decorated softball player in Cal Poly history. By Owen Main

I wanted to write a quick note about Sierra Hyland. I haven’t covered Cal Poly softball this season like I wanted to, and Hyland’s senior campaign has been really good. She’s set the Big West mark for strikeouts and player of the week honors and I would think there’s a good argument that she’s the conference’s all-time best player. 

Today, Hyland was drafted fourth by the Chicago Bandits of National Pro Fastpitch.

The Bandits have won the league twice in a row and Hyland is the first Cal Poly player to be drafted. It’s just another accolade given to the most decorated player in Cal Poly history. 

After starting the season red-hot, Cal Poly is just 5-7 in Big West play this year.  

Congratulations to Sierra Hyland for being drafted 4th overall by the @Chicago_Bandits of National Pro Fastpitch! #RideHigh #NPFDraft2017 pic.twitter.com/wNELdzdfiO

— Cal Poly Softball (@CalPolySoftball) April 25, 2017

Matt Imhof has had an amazing season so far. His Cal Poly Mustangs, too, may be in the midst of something historic.

Imhof gave up just four hits in a complete-game shutout while striking out 13 Aggies on Friday night in an 8-0 complete game shutout. It was the fourth double-digit strikeout game for the junior lefty, who is now 6-1 on the season.

Because they can’t really give it to him every week, Imhof (who has already won Big West Pitcher of the Week honors three times this season) lost out to Hawai’i’s Matt Cooper, who gave up one run and struck out nine batters in a complete game against UCSB.

Imhof didn’t give up any walks and only faced 31 batters for the game. For Aggie fans, this is how most innings probably felt like:

Sorry if this .gif made you nauseous. I’m still working on my .gif game. I know it made the Aggies and their fans nauseous. 

The rest of the weekend went much the same for Cal Poly, who stands atop the Big West Conference with a 23-4 record (3-0 in Big West play).

The Mustangs used Taylor Chris for five no-hit innings to earn a victory on Saturday and then finished-off UC Davis on the back of Casey Bloomquist on Sunday. Bloomquist went 8 innings and didn’t give up an earned run in a 9-1 win.

Next-up is a Tuesday night game against Cal State Bakersfield followed by a home series against UC Santa Barbara, one of the three current Top-25 teams in the Big West Conference. Santa Barbara lost their series last weekend against Hawai’i.

[See image gallery at www.fansmanship.com]

Hyland is perfect

Cal Poly freshman pitcher Sierra Hyland tossed a perfect game in the conference opener on Saturday against Cal State Northridge. It was Hyland’s second no-hitter of the season and led to her fourth Big West Conference Pitcher of the Week Award this season.

Hyland struck-out eleven Matadors and, since it was a perfect game, didn’t walk any.