Sacramento State informed the Big Sky on Wednesday that it will leave the conference after this year and the Big West announced that the school will become the 12th school in the conference.

“The Big West membership and conference staff are excited to welcome Sacramento State to The Big West,” Commissioner Dan Butterly said in a statement. “In addition to strengthening The Big West competitively and expanding our geographic footprint, Sacramento State is a staunch advocate for excellence in academics, athletics and service within their community. The new-look Big West promises to bring a new level of competition and friendly rivalry for student-athletes and fans alike.”

The Big West doesn’t sponsor football so Sacramento State’s program will be an independent in that sport.

The Hornets are trying to move up from FCS level to FBS as an independent and are awaiting a ruling next week from the NCAA Division I Council.

The FBS Oversight Committee recommended against the move earlier this week, citing the “paramount importance” of having an invitation to join an FBS conference. The NCAA had previously granted a waiver to Liberty in 2017 to move to FBS as an independent but said the circumstances have changed since then.

The Flames were an independent in football from 2018-22 before joining Conference USA.

“Although a waiver of the bona fide invitation requirement was granted in 2017, that decision was made in a different era, under a different set of facts and rules …,” the committee recommended, according to public meeting minutes. “Due to the significance of the bona fide invitation from an FBS conference requirement and the lack of compelling mitigation explaining why that requirement, one that several other FCS institutions have met in recent years, has not been met, the committee does not support relief.”

Sacramento State said the school will consider all conference options for football if the council votes against its application.

Sacramento State had been an affiliate member of the Big West in various sports in the past but now will have 16 teams competing in the Big West starting in 2026-27.

“We are thrilled to become a full member of the Big West and are grateful for the invitation,” Athletic Director Mark Orr said. “Sacramento State strives to provide our student-athletes the opportunity to be in the best position to be nationally competitive, and the Big West for decades has been a conference that has enjoyed national success in several sports. We are eager to compete for championships, enhance existing rivalries, and develop new relationships with our peer conference members.”

The Hornets will officially join The Big West on July 1, 2026, joining a lineup that includes Cal State Fullerton, Long Beach State, Cal State Northridge, UC Irvine, UC Riverside, UC San Diego, UC Santa Barbara, Cal Poly, Cal State Bakersfield, California Baptist and Utah Valley. UC Davis is departing to join the Mountain West in July 2026.

The Big West has no current plans to expand beyond 12 member institutions.

The Hornets have made a big investment in the men’s basketball program recently, hiring former NBA star Mike Bibby as head coach and Shaquille O’Neal as a voluntary GM for the program.

Sacramento State went 7-25 last season under interim coach Michael Czepil, who was promoted last spring after David Patrick left to take a job as associate head coach at LSU.

The Hornets had gone 28-42 in two seasons under Patrick and the program has never made an NCAA Tournament since moving up to Division I in 1991-92. The Hornets have had a winning record only twice since then, going 16-14 in 2019-20 and 21-12 in 2014-15.

A federal judge signed off on arguably the biggest change in the history of college sports Friday, clearing the way for schools to begin paying their athletes millions as soon as next month as the multibillion-dollar industry shreds the last vestiges of the amateur model that defined it for more than a century.

Nearly five years after Arizona State swimmer Grant House sued the NCAA and its five biggest conferences to lift restrictions on revenue sharing, U.S. Judge Claudia Wilken approved the final proposal that had been hung up on roster limits, just one of many changes ahead amid concerns that thousands of walk-on athletes will lose their chance to play college sports.

The sweeping terms of the so-called House settlement include approval for each school to share up to $20.5 million with athletes over the next year and $2.7 billion that will be paid over the next decade to thousands of former players who were barred from that revenue for years. These new payments are in addition to scholarships and other benefits the athletes already receive.

One of the lead plaintiff attorneys, Steve Berman, called Friday’s news “a fantastic win for hundreds of thousands of college athletes.”

The agreement brings a seismic shift to hundreds of schools that were forced to reckon with the reality that their players are the ones producing the billions in TV and other revenue, mostly through football and basketball, that keep this machine humming.

The scope of the changes – some have already begun – is difficult to overstate. The professionalization of college athletics will be seen in the high-stakes and expensive recruitment of stars on their way to the NFL and NBA, and they will be felt by athletes whose schools have decided to pare their programs. The agreement will resonate in nearly every one of the NCAA’s 1,100 member schools boasting nearly 500,000 athletes.

NCAA President Charlie Baker said the deal “opens a pathway to begin stabilizing college sports.”

The road to a settlement

Wilken’s ruling comes 11 years after she dealt the first significant blow to the NCAA ideal of amateurism. Then, she ruled in favor of former UCLA basketball player Ed O’Bannon and others seeking a way to earn money from the use of their name, image and likeness (NIL) – a term that is now as common in college sports as “March Madness” or “Roll Tide.”

It was just four years ago that the NCAA cleared the way for NIL money to start flowing, but the changes coming are even bigger.

Wilken granted preliminary approval to the settlement last October. That sent colleges scurrying to determine not only how they were going to afford the payments, but how to regulate an industry that also allows players to cut deals with third parties so long as they are deemed compliant by a newly formed enforcement group that will be run by auditors at Deloitte.

The agreement takes a big chunk of oversight away from the NCAA and puts it in the hands of the four biggest conferences. The ACC, Big Ten, Big 12 and SEC hold most of the power and decision-making heft, especially when it comes to the College Football Playoff, which is the most significant financial driver in the industry and is not under the NCAA umbrella like the March Madness tournaments are.

Roster limits held things up

The deal looked ready to go, but Wilken put a halt to it this spring after listening to a number of players who had lost their spots because of newly imposed roster limits being placed on teams.

The limits were part of a trade-off that allowed the schools to offer scholarships to everyone on the roster, instead of only a fraction, as has been the case for decades. Schools started cutting walk-ons in anticipation of the deal being approved.

Wilken asked for a solution and, after weeks, the parties decided to let anyone cut from a roster – now termed a “Designated Student-Athlete” – return to their old school or play for a new one without counting against the new limit.

Wilken ultimately agreed, going point-by-point through the objectors’ arguments to explain why they didn’t hold up. The main point pushed by the parties was that those roster spots were never guaranteed in the first place.

“The modifications provide Designated Student-Athletes with what they had prior to the roster limits provisions being implemented, which was the opportunity to be on a roster at the discretion of a Division I school,” Wilken wrote.

Her decision, however, took nearly a month to write, leaving the schools and conferences in limbo – unsure if the plans they had been making for months, really years, would go into play.

“It remains to be seen how this will impact the future of inter-collegiate athletics – but as we continue to evolve, Carolina remains committed to providing outstanding experiences and broad-based programming to student-athletes,” North Carolina athletic director Bubba Cunningham said.

Winners and losers

The list of winners and losers is long and, in some cases, hard to tease out.

A rough guide of winners would include football and basketball stars at the biggest schools, which will devote much of their bankroll to signing and retaining them. For instance, Michigan quarterback Bryce Underwood’s NIL deal is reportedly worth between $10.5 million and $12 million.

Losers, despite Wilken’s ruling, figure to be at least some of the walk-ons and partial scholarship athletes whose spots are gone.

Also in limbo are the Olympic sports many of those athletes play and that serve as the main pipeline for a U.S. team that has won the most medals at every Olympics since the downfall of the Soviet Union.

All this is a price worth paying, according to the attorneys who crafted the settlement and argue they delivered exactly what they were asked for: an attempt to put more money in the pockets of the players whose sweat and toil keep people watching from the start of football season through March Madness and the College World Series in June.

What the settlement does not solve is the threat of further litigation.

Though this deal brings some uniformity to the rules, states still have separate laws regarding how NIL can be doled out, which could lead to legal challenges. Baker has been consistent in pushing for federal legislation that would put college sports under one rulebook and, if he has his way, provide some form of antitrust protection to prevent the new model from being disrupted again.

Both Arce, the Big West Softball Field Player of the Year, and Hosch, Cal State Fullerton’s women’s golf coach, could go lightly on the imposition part of the equation because the talent was there for all to see and admire. When you have Arce’s raw power and incandescent skill set, or when you have the peanut-butter-and-jelly chemistry and clutch abilities of Hosch’s team, you do not need to go to the whip.

Baseball coach Jason Dietrich and men’s golf coach Jason Drotter did not have that luxury. Their will imposition left nothing to the imagination, taking on a Darwinian quality that wouldn’t be out of place at an SEC or Big Ten program. After last year’s collapse, Dietrich invited a good portion of his team to investigate other programs. Drotter, meanwhile, put his golfers through a boot camp featuring 10-mile runs and obstacle courses, a boot camp brought to you by CSUF’s ROTC program with the goal of building mental toughness.

It worked.

The Titans’ men’s golf team finished second in the Big West, which was better than Drotter expected after CSUF finished 14th out of 15 in an early March tournament. And the Titans’ baseball team — the Ferrari of the athletic department’s program and the primary athletic focus and concern of CSUF alums across the country — rebounded nicely from that nightmarish 2024 to make the Big West’s inaugural postseason tournament, finishing third with a 19-11 conference record.

Whatever imposition of will Drotter and Dietrich employed squeezed every ounce of talent out of the talent at their disposal. Drotter coached up freshman Will Tanaka and junior Giacomo Comerio to top-five finishes at the Big West Tournament, their best finishes of the season.

Dietrich brought out the best in senior shortstop Maddox Latta, who was named Big West Defensive Player of the Year after leading the Titans with a .362 average, .486 on-base percentage, .503 slugging percentage and .989 OPS to go with a .977 fielding percentage. Latta was one of three Titans earning First-Team All-Conference honors, along with third baseman and Big West Freshman of the Year Carter Johnstone (.341, 47 runs, 40 RBIs) and sophomore closer Andrew Wright (1.59 ERA, 10 saves).

But back to Arce, who put together one of the most complete and dominant softball seasons in program history. She pounded 12 home runs, two shy of Hawaii’s Jamie McGaughey’s 14, which denied Arce the Big West Triple Crown. She led the conference in average (.405), RBI (63), hits (68), slugging (.690) and total bases (116). She finished second in home runs and OPS (1.121).

Arce’s 63 RBIs broke Jenny Topping’s 24-year-old mark of 59 — one of the most cherished records in the storied history of the program. She eclipsed the mark with a two-run, go-ahead homer on May 3 against Cal State Bakersfield.

Arce’s imposition of her will led the Titans to their second consecutive regular season conference title and an unprecedented haul of postseason honors. She was one of 18 players or coaches earning All-Conference honors. CSUF swept both Freshman Field Player of the Year (Nataly Lozano) and Freshman Pitcher of the Year (Eva Hurtado).

It also brought first-year head coach Gina Oaks Garcia Big West Coach of the Year accolades, a no-brainer considering the Titans went 37-15 overall and 22-5 in conference. Oaks Garcia became the fourth coach in program history to earn the honor, and she has a serendipitous tie to the other three. Judi Garman, who started the chain in 1981, recruited Oaks Garcia from Rancho Cucamonga High to CSUF. Michelle Gromacki, who coached Oaks Garcia, received the honor twice, and Kelly Ford, who brought Oaks Garcia back to CSUF last year, won the award five times, the last in 2022.

That brings us to Hosch, who won her first Big West Coach of the Year for guiding the Titans to waters heretofore uncharted. Not only did CSUF win its first Big West Women’s Golf Championship, but it finished fifth in the NCAA West Regionals to qualify for the NCAA Championships for the first time. It was the first time a No. 10 seed emerged from the regionals to claim a chair at the nationals, and the Titans pulled it off with a final-day flurry that edged Auburn by a stroke for the fifth and final spot.

That highlighted a season that featured four individual tournament victories, two team titles and the crowning of Kaitlyn Zermeno Smith as the Big West Golfer of the Year, following this year’s conference runner-up, Davina Xanh, who won that honor in 2024.

When it came to imposing will on the track, the Titans’ usual complement of sprinters did what they usually do under sixth-year coach Marques Barosso — win races and break records. The Titans’ men’s track and field team finished second after winning conference titles in the 4-by-100-meter relay team and the 4-by-400 relay team, along with Abel Jordan winning the 110 hurdles, Isaiah Emerson winning the 400 and Hawkin Miller capturing the shot put.

The CSUF women, who finished sixth, won the 4-by-100 relay, along with Brooklyn Davis winning the 100.

Amid all of that will imposition happening on the field, track and course, the Titans made news off the field, announcing the hiring of two new coaches: John Bonner takes over the women’s basketball program and Nicky Cannon returns to helm the women’s volleyball team.

Bonner takes over from Jeff Harada, who did not have his contract renewed after a 7-23 season. The Titans poached him from Cal State Dominguez Hills, where Bonner spent the last nine seasons transforming the Toros into one of the premier Division II programs in the country.

This past season, the Toros were 36-2, losing to Grand Valley State in the national championship game. That marked the second time Bonner and the Toros reached the NCAA Division II Elite Eight, joining a 31-3 season in 2022-23. He took CSUDH to five postseason appearances, earned CCAA Coach of the Year twice and compiled a 127-82 record in his nine seasons.

Cannon served as an assistant coach to Ashley Preston in 2019 and 2020 and to Nicole Polster in 2021, coaching defense, outside hitters and overseeing recruiting. She spent the past three years at UC Riverside, where she led the Highlanders to their first 10-win season since 2017 last year.

When Cannon was at CSUF, she instituted a defensive mindset that not only produced one of the region’s best liberos in Savanha Costello (5.31 digs per set) but put the 2019 Titans among the nation’s top-20 defenses with 17.44 digs per set. Cannon also coached freshman Julia Crawford to the most kills (368) and total points (398.5) by a Titan player since 2014.

We’ll see next season how Bonner and Cannon impose their will on two programs displaying recent struggles that left nothing to the imagination.

The conference said Wednesday it remained open to the possibility of adding a 12th member but anticipated being an 11-school league when Utah Valley and Cal Baptist officially join July 1, 2026.

The Big West doesn’t have football, and Hawaii and UC Davis are leaving to join the Mountain West Conference in 2026-27. Hawaii has been a football-only member of the Mountain West since 2012. UC Davis has been a football-only member of the Big Sky Conference.

Utah Valley is leaving the Western Athletic Conference, and the Wolverines will compete in 13 Big West-sponsored sports, including men’s and women’s basketball, baseball and softball.

“Their addition expands our geographic footprint into a vibrant and strategically significant region, while elevating the level of competition across the board,” Big West commissioner Dan Butterly said.

Utah Valley will be the largest school in the Big West with an enrollment of 47,000. Barring further realignment, Utah Valley will replace Hawaii as the only school in the conference outside California.

The top-seeded Anteaters (41-13) will face an opponent to be determined in Saturday’s 7 p.m. game.

Fourth-seeded Hawaii (35-20), which defeated third-seeded Cal State Fullerton, 16-4, in Friday night’s elimination game, will face second-seeded Cal Poly (38-17) on Saturday at 3 p.m. to determine the other spot in the championship game. A UCI win on Saturday night would give the Anteaters the title while a loss would force a winner-take-all game rematch on Sunday at 3 p.m.

UCI charged out of the gate with a strong first inning on Friday, once again getting the first three runners on base and getting RBIs on a Jacob McCombs ground out and a Chase Call single for a 2-0 lead. The Anteaters scored another run off an error in the third, while Trevor Hansen was dialed in on the mound.

UCI broke the game open with six runs in the fourth inning, five of which scored with two outs. Three straight one-out singles made it 4-0, then McCombs hit a three-run home run. Another single brought up Blake Penso, who crushed a two-run homer – his 10th of the season – to center field to stretch the lead to 9-0.

The Anteaters scored six more in the fifth, with Anthony Martinez driving in the first two with a double to right field. A pitching change and a pair of hit by pitches loaded the bases, then Penso ripped a three-run double to left center for a 14-0 lead. Alonso Reyes, the last Anteater without a hit at that point, added an RBI single to center field.

The Mustangs strung together four straight hits to begin the sixth and scored three runs before Hansen (9-2) ended the inning with his sixth strikeout.

The run rule was in effect heading into the seventh, and Cal Poly finally chased Hansen with a walk and a hit. David Utagawa came on for UCI, and a single on his first pitch loaded the bases with no outs. Utagawa got out of the jam with a short fly ball and a game-ending double play.

Martinez finished 3 for 4 with two RBIs, while Penso went 2 for 4 with his eighth home run, five RBIs and two runs scored to pace UCI. Yeaman was 2 for 2 with two walks, four runs scored and an RBI, Call was 2 for 3 with two runs scored and an RBI and leadoff man Will Bermudez went 2 for 5 with two runs scored.

Hansen allowed three runs on nine hits with six strikeouts in six innings, his eighth quality start of the season.

Hawaii 16, Cal State Fullerton 4: The Titans (29-27) squandered some early scoring opportunities and saw their season come to an end with a lopsided loss on Friday night.

Fullerton strung together three straight singles to start the game, capped by Matthew Bardowell’s RBI single, but the Titans missed a chance for a bigger rally by striking out with runners on first and second and no outs and hitting into an inning-ending double play.

Hawaii responded with three runs in the top of the second inning to take a 3-1 lead. Fullerton loaded the bases in the bottom of the second, but was unable to score.

The Rainbow Warriors added single runs in the fourth and fifth to extend its lead to 5-1. The Titans scored on an infield single by Max Ortega in the sixth but left runners on the corners.

Hawaii pulled away in the seventh inning, scoring five runs to open a 10-2 lead.

Fullerton got a two-run double by Carter Johnstone in the seventh inning to cut the lead to 10-4, but the Warriors added six runs in the ninth.

Will Bermudez reached base five times, going 2 for 2 with two runs scored and an RBI to pace the UCI offense, while Max Martin had three strikeouts in 1⅔ innings to close out the win.

The Anteaters (40-13), the Big West regular-season champs, will face second-seeded Cal Poly (38-16) in a winner’s bracket game on Friday at 3 p.m., while fourth-seeded Hawaii (34-20) will face third-seeded Cal State Fullerton (29-26) in an elimination game at 7 p.m.

Cal Poly beat Fullerton, 7-2, on Thursday night.

UCI grabbed an early lead with a three-run first inning. With the bases loaded and no outs, Anthony Martinez started the scoring with an RBI single. Jacob McCombs’ hard-hit ground out scored Colin Yeaman with the second run, then Chase Call singled to left center for a 3-0 lead.

The Rainbow Warriors answered with two runs in the second inning, but they stranded the potential tying run.

UCI scored three more runs in the bottom of the second. A ground ball under the second baseman’s glove scored two runs, and another McCombs grounder extended the Anteaters’ lead to 6-2.

Pitching and defense took control for the next four innings. Riley Kelly worked out of a pair of jams while pitching into the fifth inning and striking out five while scattering six hits, then Ricky Ojeda (13-0) came on in relief and went three innings.

Hawaii’s Ben Zeigler-Namoa hit a three-run home run in the seventh to cut UCI’s lead to 6-5, but the Anteaters added an insurance run in the bottom of the eighth and Martin retired five of his six batters for his 14th save.

Frankie Carney went 2 for 4 with a run scored for UCI, while and Martinez went 1 for 4 with two RBIs and Call went 1 for 4 with an RBI.

Jordan Donahue went 3 for 4 with a run scored for Hawaii, and Matthew Miura went 2 for 5 with a run scored.

Cal Poly 7, CS Fullerton 2: Carter Johnstone, Eli Lopez and Paul Contreras each had two hits for Fullerton, but the Titans could not dig out of an early hole and dropped their opener.

Cal Poly led 4-0 after a three-run second inning and tacked on single runs in the fifth, sixth and seventh inning before Fullerton scored a pair in the top of the eighth with back-to-back home runs by Matthew Bardowell (his eighth of the season) and Andrew Kirchner (his 12th).

Kirchner now has 70 RBIs, the most by a Fullerton player since Nick Ramirez had 75 in 2010.

Even with 11 hits the Titans couldn’t find a way to string hits together, stranding 10 runners on base.

Mustangs right-hander Griffin Naess scattered eight hits in 6⅔ scoreless innings with four strikeouts and one walk.

Mikiah Negrete had a tough start for Fullerton, giving up five runs (four earned) on nine hits while walking one and striking out five.

Ryan Fenn went 4 for 5 with two RBIs for Cal Poly, while Zach Daudet went 3 for 4 with a walk and two runs scored and Cam Hoiland went 3 for 4 with two runs scored and an RBI. Dante Vachini went 2 for 4 with two RBIs and a run scored.

During the second round of the Big West women’s golf championships, Zermeno Smith was standing behind a tree, lining up her second shot on the 18th hole at Spanish Trail Country Club in Las Vegas. CSF golf coach Kathryn Hosch went up to her to discuss her options.

Zermeno Smith wasn’t in the mood for discussion.

“She immediately said, ‘I know I can work it between these two trees. Plus, I’m about to tie the school record, so I have to go for it.’ I’ve never had another player who can think about where they are on the leaderboard and use it for motivation, rather than feeling the pressure,” Hosch said. “Needless to say, she birdied the hole. It’s so much fun to watch her in those moments.”

Not if you’re one of her opponents, paired with a player who can overpower courses with drives that are routinely 290 yards or more. And not if you’re a rival conference golfer treated to the sight of Zermeno Smith rising from seemingly out of the clouds to win the Big West individual title – largely on the strength of that second-round 65 that tied the program record.

Now, add this variable to the unsettled feeling equation. If it weren’t for a decision seven years ago, Zermeno Smith wouldn’t be dismantling golf courses up and down the West Coast. She wouldn’t be destroying the will of golf opponents by sheer power matched by few, if any, of her counterparts. There would be a different Big West Player of the Year – likely teammate and 2024 Big West Player of the Year Davina Xanh, who finished second in her conference title defense to Zermeno Smith.

We’ll get to that decision in a moment, because that’s not the only twist in the road that made Zermeno Smith only the second Fullerton player to win the Big West Conference title and the keystone to CSF winning the program’s first team conference championship. Because if there’s one thing more pronounced than Zermeno Smith’s power, it’s her persistence.

“We first became aware of Kaitlyn during the recruiting process because she was incredibly persistent with her emails,” Hosch said. “She would update us after nearly every junior event she played, and to be honest, I often read them without replying, which is pretty common, since our inboxes are flooded with recruiting messages. What really stood out to me, though, was how her scores steadily improved over time and, more importantly, her athleticism.

“At the time, we had already secured verbal commitments from a couple of experienced European players, so it made sense to take on a ‘project’ player. Normally, I’m hesitant to bring in players who are newer to the game because it takes a lot of time to develop them, and in college golf, we just don’t have that luxury. But Kaitlyn was different. She had an extreme amount of speed and athletic ability – the kind of natural tools you simply can’t teach.”

Even then, Hosch remained noncommittal until literally the 11th hour. Cal State Los Angeles was hot on Zermeno Smith’s trail and had an offer waiting for her, with a deadline to accept it. Zermeno Smith was blowing up Hosch’s inbox – and getting nothing but crickets in return.

“On that day, I was praying about it. I needed a sign to know I was going to the right place,” Zermeno Smith said. “I sent Coach Hosch another email that day saying, ‘If you want me, speak now or forever hold your peace.’ She sent a text, called me and offered me a position on the team. At 7 p.m. that night, I declined Cal State L.A. and went to Cal State Fullerton.”

Instead of defenestrating courses in the Division II California Collegiate Athletic Association, Zermeno Smith was a Division I golfer. And Hosch instantly understood and became very familiar with one of the eternal truths of golf: You can’t teach a women’s college golfer to possess the kind of power Zermeno Smith brings to a golf course.

She regularly flirts with 300-yard drivers and is constrained only by the courses the Titans play and a short game that improves by the day. On many occasions, Zermeno Smith encounters obstacles off the tee accessible only to her, forcing her at times to put the driver away and hit 3-wood or long iron.

“Then, I’m back where everyone else is,” she said.

To put Zermeno Smith’s power into context, Julia Lopez Ramirez of Spain leads the LPGA in driving distance with an average drive on measured holes of 289.45 yards. Nelly Korda, the top-ranked women’s player in the world, is ninth at nearly 279 yards, about what Zermeno Smith averaged her freshman year, when she barely got into tournaments.

That Zermeno Smith may have possessed elite distance. She also possessed less-than-elite skills on and around the green, which explained why she played in one event her freshman year – and that as an individual.

“My putting and short game weren’t great. I would say my putting and short game were well below average,” she said. “I was the worst putter in Division I golf.

Extensive work with her personal coach, Perry Johnson, whom Zermeno Smith credits for understanding her fluid, changing swing and being able to instantly spot imperceptible changes in it, helped close the gap between her long and short games.

But there was more to it. Zermeno Smith has an innate ability to see several moves down the chessboard and understand the importance of her decisions – and their likely outcome.

Witness the decision she made at 14, the one that now has opponents throwing their hands in the air in resignation. Growing up in Covina, Zermeno Smith was a standout softball player, a power-hitting catcher who drew interest from Pac-12 schools as a high school freshman. To this day, Zermeno Smith swears she’s a better softball player than she is a golfer.

But during her sophomore year of high school, she realized something that changed the trajectory of her life – and college future.

“With softball, there’s nothing after college, and I knew for a fact I wanted to play a pro sport as a job and a career,” she said. “I loved softball, but I ended up quitting. … It was so hard. I had so many coaches telling me I could go Pac-12 in softball and go really far in it. And it was tough because I love being part of a team and playing for something other than myself. It was hard to give up softball and say goodbye to all my friends, but for the sake of my future and what I wanted to do, it was the best decision I could make.”

Even with the late start, which delayed the recruiting process, Zermeno Smith saw golf as the right road ahead. She and Johnson just had to put the work in. Her natural ability to process information and shrug off pressure would do the rest.

“What makes Kaitlyn different is her ability to embrace pressure and competition – she thrives on it,” Hosch said. “During her freshman year, it was almost comical. She was constantly challenging Davina Xanh to chipping contests, putting contests, closest-to-the-pin contests – anything. And honestly, she used to lose a lot. But she never gave up.

“Watching her compete – and lose – in all those little games might actually be the reason she’s so comfortable in pressure situations today. … Some of her best rounds, and even her best tournaments, have started off terribly. She is never out of it, and she knows it.”

A day after ascending to No. 9 in the latest Baseball America Top 25 poll, their highest ranking since 2014, the Anteaters checked all the boxes in a 5-1 victory against Cal State Fullerton, ending the month of April with eight consecutive wins for the second season in a row.

“It’s easy to be fired up. Angel Stadium, Cal State Fullerton,” UCI coach Ben Orloff said. “We were fired up to play. We need to play better, but it is pretty cool to play here at Angel Stadium, where a lot of our kids have never played on a big league field before.”

UCI (33-9 overall) was coming off a three-game sweep against second-place Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo last weekend, giving the Anteaters a four-game cushion over the Mustangs for first place in the Big West with three weeks left in conference play.

Nine more conference games remain for UCI, including a three-game series against Fullerton to finish the regular season on May 15-17.

“That’s when we want to be playing our best ball in May and June, so on the right direction,” UCI first baseman Anthony Martinez said after going 3 for 4 with a walk and two runs scored against the Titans.

The Anteaters were ranked 24th in Baseball America’s preseason poll after finishing 20th last season.

They’ve steadily moved up to their highest ranking in Orloff’s seven seasons at the helm, but that number has little meaning to him.

“It’s good for propaganda, it’s good for the families, it’s good for recruiting, but the reality is, it means nothing,” he said. “There’s so much left to go. The goal isn’t to be somewhere on April 25. … Even last weekend at Cal Poly, it wasn’t about playing for first place or second place. We’re trying to get better.”

Martinez led off the second inning with a sharp single to center after Fullerton catcher Max Ortega could not glove a high foul against the screen behind home plate.

Rowan Felsch dropped a one-out single into right-center and Will Bermudez then pulled an RBI double off the base of the wall in left for a 1-0 lead.

The Anteaters loaded the bases with still just one out in the inning before Frankie Carney rolled a squibber up the third-base line. Carter Johnstone touched his bag for the second out and threw home for the tag on James Castagnola to complete the inning-ending double play.

Fullerton reliever Chad Gurnea struck out the first two batters to start the third before issuing back-to-back walks to Chase Call and Martinez.

Castagnola then grounded a 2-and-2 pitch through the left side to score Call from second for a 2-0 lead.

Gurnea then walked two more batters to force in a run and make it 3-0.

The Titans took advantage of two successful bunts to load the bases with no outs in the third and cut it to 3-1 on a sacrifice fly by Andrew Kirchner, but couldn’t draw any closer in the inning.

Nobody scored again until the eighth, when the Anteaters loaded the bases with one on a hit batter and two walks. Colin Yeaman then grounded a single off the glove of Johnstone and into left field to score two runs and extend the lead to 5-1.

The Anteaters closed the game with six shutout innings of relief, capped by Ricky Ojeda striking out the side in the ninth.

“The jitters were going,” Martinez said. “Obviously we can play better than we did today, but great to come out with a win.”

The Big West Tournament is scheduled for May 21-25 at Cal State Fullerton, followed by the NCAA Regionals the following weekend. Orloff believes the Anteaters have the right makeup to make a deep run this postseason.

“It starts with pitching and defense for us,” he said. “The offense gets the attention, but we win because of pitching and defense, and if we keep pitching at the level we’re pitching it, and playing good defense, I think we’ll be a team that has a chance to, hopefully, play beyond Memorial Day.”

The Titans (23-21) sit one game back of Cal Poly in third place after sweeping a three-game series at UC Davis last weekend.

Fullerton lost seven of its first eight games to start the season, and then dropped its first five conference games before an eight-game winning streak righted the ship.

“Finish the job.”

Since the end of the 2024 outdoor track season, Barosso had seen enough almost, enough nearly and enough of just-not-enough. He’d seen enough of great practice times chased by average-to-good race results that drove him crazy. That, in turn, led to an overreliance on other teams to take away points and finish the job the Titans couldn’t. As Barosso put it, “That’s a recipe for losing.”

And that recipe followed the script. More on that in a moment.

There was talent there across the board. But where was that talent when it mattered?

Barosso wasn’t sure. But he was going to find out. And if that meant becoming an earworm to his charges like an overplayed song on the radio, well. … “Finishing is the theme to the season. We have to finish the job,” Barosso said. “For us, we have to finish to win championships. Last year, we went into the (Big West) Conference as favorites, the first time that ever happened on the men’s side and we didn’t finish the job. All year, that’s been our thing: We have to finish the job.

“When you looked at our indoor races, there were good times and good performances, but when we got in close races, we’d beat ourselves by tightening up and not finishing our race plans. Mentally, we’d throw out our race plans and not execute what we’d do at practice.”

All of that neatly explains how Cal Poly threw out the Titans’ chances for a four-peat as men’s Big West champions last year. After winning the conference title in 2021, 2022 and 2023, Fullerton finished 17 points behind Cal Poly last year. That would have been the Titans’ seventh conference crown in the past eight years.

“If we did what we were supposed to do and finished the races, we would have been fine. We beat ourselves,” Barosso said.

Now, Barosso looks around at the talent at his disposal and his finishing message resonates louder and louder. That’s because by his own admission, he’s looking at the most talent he’s had in his four seasons running the Fullerton program. At every meet over the first month of the season, someone is racking up a mark that is top three, top five, top seven, top 10 in program history.

“We’re stronger in every event this year, top to bottom,” Barosso said. “On our throw squad last year, we had one guy score consistently. Now, there are four to five potential points scorers. We’ve brought in heavy hitters in middle and long distance. We’re looking better all the way around.”

There’s Dossman, who broke his own school record in the 200 in the season’s first meet: the Ben Brown Invitational at CSF in early March. Last week, Dossman showed that speed travels, breaking it again at the Texas Relays when he covered the distance in 20.56 seconds. Earlier that day, he clocked 10.16 seconds in the 100 that would have broken another record, had it not been wind-aided.

Dossman anchored a 4×100 relay team that finished third at the Texas Relays. Their 39.56 time was the second-fastest in school history.

There’s middle-distance standout Luke Hitchcock, who set the program record in the 800 at the UC Irvine Challenge Cup in mid-March, finishing second to UC Irvine’s Angel Cordero in 1:49.36. A week later at UCLA’s Legends Classic, Hitchcock ran the second-fastest 1,500 time in program history (3:44.52).

There are the aforementioned throwers: Brayden Bitter, Hawkin Miller and Kyler Headley.

There’s Carter Birade, who missed all but two meets last year due to various injuries. He won the Legends Classic 100 in 10.50, giving the Titans’ already deep sprinter room – one that includes Dossman, Dominic Gates, John Clifford (the 2023 Co-Big West Track Athlete of the Year) and Maleik Pabon – another option. Birade also runs the 110 hurdles.

And speaking of the 110 hurdles – along with several other events – there’s Abel Jordan. One of the most singularly talented athletes in program history, the native of Madrid, Spain, was the 2024 Big West Men’s Track Athlete of the Year after winning the 100 at the Big West Championships in a school-record 10.19 seconds, finishing second in the 110 hurdles (13.76) and helping the Titans win the 4×100 relay. Jordan broke three school records last year: the 100, 110 hurdles and the 4×100 relay.

During the just-completed indoor season, Jordan qualified for the NCAA Championships, broke the European U23 record in the 60 meters (6.54) and broke the Spanish U23 record in the 60-meter hurdles (7.53). He also broke the CSF 60-meter hurdles record (7.59) at the New Mexico Collegiate Classic.

“He was typically taking it easy his first two years because he wasn’t used to this kind of a workout schedule,” said Barosso, who is resting Jordan during the early part of the season due to his indoor-season success. “Now that he’s bigger and stronger, he can absorb more work and it’s paying off for him.”

Led by another international presence, the women’s team is also seeing some payoff as it chases its first conference title since 2019. That’s Canadian Ashley Odiase, who helped her national team finish third in the 4×100 relay at the World Athletics U20 Championships last August. She earned a bronze medal in the Canadian U20 Championships in the 200. Barosso said Odiase came back injured from the Worlds, leading him to redshirt her for the indoor season.

There’s freshman Emma Samvelian, who smacked Barosso’s gob with her unique combination of events: the pole vault, discus and shot put. Barosso said he didn’t know what events to send her out in, so he opted for the pole vault and shot put. She set the school record in the indoor pole vault and scored points in the shot during the indoor season.

There’s Jahzara Davis, the runner-up at last year’s Big West Championships in the 100 hurdles (13.70) and an NCAA West Preliminaries qualifier. She anchored the Titans’ winning 4X100 relay team at the Challenge Cup.

“She’s everything for us,” Barosso said.

And there’s sprinter Arionn Livingston, who finished third in the 400 at the Texas Relays with the sixth-best mark in school history (54.34). Barosso singled her out for her “crazy improvement” in that event and the 200.

As he ponders how to maximize all of this talent in his fourth season after taking over for longtime coach John Elders, Barosso finds himself preaching patience in one hand and an urgency to finish in the other. He’s learning that taking a more proactive approach in communicating the team’s actual mission and getting everyone to understand what that mission is – winning conference championships and getting to nationals – is his part of the finishing touch.

“I’ve learned a lot of patience and that you can never communicate too much,” he said. “You learn each student is different. You learn how to coach everyone individually, but as a whole group, which is contradictory. You’re managing personalities.

“I always wanted this job at Fullerton. It’s been a dream, and I need to make sure I can keep this dream of bringing Fullerton onto the national stage, where I think we can be.”

Images of the Cal State Fullerton men’s golf team’s season imploding before his very eyes. Images of a year of careful preparation disintegrating in three days of sloppy golf. Unthinking golf, devoid of mental toughness. And there’s nothing guaranteed to incite Drotter’s fury quicker than watching his players lose strokes because of mental weakness.

And the late February Wyoming Desert Intercollegiate on a very easy Classic Club course provided Drotter an endless reel of 3D golfing horrors that even National Geographic-quality desertscapes wouldn’t purge. The Titans finished 14th out of 15 teams in a tournament in which they finished second last year. Worse, they were 29-over-par —60 strokes behind first-place Charlotte — on one of the easiest courses they’ll see all season. While wasting Tegan Andrews’ 9-under-par, sixth-place finish.

“What I didn’t see is the toughness on the golf course. The inability to recognize there’s trouble and step up and just rip it,” Drotter said. “Instead, I saw an inability to recognize there’s trouble, getting paranoid there is trouble and hitting it in the trouble. That’s a mental weakness that needs to be addressed.

“It’s on me. It’s always on me. The success of the players is all them; the lack thereof is the coach’s responsibility. And I missed it. It smacked me in the face on the last trip. I saw some things that, quite frankly, I’ve seen in my career, but only from an individual here or there. Seeing it throughout most of the lineup is really difficult for me to accept and a big challenge for us moving forward.”

Thus, Drotter wasted no time moving forward. He spent the return trip to Fullerton on his phone. First, there was the call to Brian Kane, the Titans’ sports psychologist, for emergency sessions. Then, there was Drotter ripping up his entire March practice schedule — partly to accommodate Kane’s mental sessions.

And partly to accommodate Drotter’s next call. That went to “Captain Kurt,” Kurt Boehmke, the administrative support coordinator for the CSUF Department of Military Science. Drotter asked Boehmke to put together a “golf boot camp” for the next three weeks.

“The bottom line is we’re starting over, and I’m going to do some stuff I haven’t done in 10 years — a “Navy Seal-style” ROTC boot camp,” Drotter said. “It’s going to be only six golf hours in the 20 hours I have (each week). We’re going to tear them down and build them up, and we’ll focus on the mechanics and the physical part of golf in April. I have to do a year’s worth of work in two months.

“I’ve been really depressed for the last three or four days. I’m upset. I really didn’t see this coming.”

Instead of 12-14 rounds of qualifying, nontournament golf, where players compete for spots in the five-man tournament lineup, the Titans are looking at 6 a.m. 10-mile runs three days a week, along with a three-hour obstacle course the other two days. When the Titans actually pick up golf clubs, practices will be geared exclusively toward pressure situations: short-game work from 120-yards in, dealing with 5-10-foot putts and other game elements that reveal a player’s mental character and course management skills.

If this is a novelty to his players, Drotter’s attitude setting it up forces him into embracing a mindset that doesn’t fit into his mental Samsonite. The Titans have three tournaments in March, starting with this weekend’s Grand Canyon University Invitational, a tournament they won last year. Breaking down and building his team back up is so paramount to Drotter right now that he’s not paying attention to scores and finishes.

Square that mindset from a coach who watched the Titans finish second as a team in the last three conference tournaments — by a combined six strokes.

“I probably won’t be able to deal with that; I’ve never done that in my life. But that’s the plan,” he said. “My only concern is one thing only: toughness. Can you handle adversity? Do you have perseverance? If there’s a problem on a hole, can you step up and rip it without worrying about it? That’s it. That’s what I’m concerned about moving forward. Period.”

Now, re-enter Kane. Remember when Drotter ripped up his March schedule? This came with not only a psychic and time cost but a financial one, because Drotter canceled his travel schedule to Phoenix for this week’s tournament and rebooked one to get the Titans a day with Kane before the tournament. A disciple of the late Ken Ravizza, the former CSUF professor who revolutionized sports psychology, the Arizona-based Kane will work with the Titans on accountability and practice plans.

With Drotter’s concerns centering on everything from the Titans’ lack of mental toughness and course management to Big West Conference 2023 Champion Russell Howlett’s swing issues, the one thing he doesn’t have to worry about is Andrews. The defending conference champion became the second player in program history to be named Big West Golfer of the year, Andrews is rounding into form with two top-five finishes this season.

As for Howlett, the news isn’t nearly as rosy. Expected to be CSUF’s No. 2 after his 71.8 scoring average, Drotter said the Big West Honorable Mention selection last year lost his swing over the summer and not only hasn’t gotten it back, but it’s gotten worse, leaving Howlett mechanically and mentally adrift. Drotter said he doesn’t expect Howlett back in the lineup in March, forcing him to use two players he had no intention of starting.

Then, there’s Matthew Schafer, who now finds himself CSUF’s No. 2 player. A sterling ball-striker who has enough of Drotter’s mental toughness and who carried a 72.66 scoring average last year, Schafer’s considerable ceiling; Drotter called him “one of the best drivers of the ball I ever had. …” is capped by an average short game and below-average putter. This was illustrated in painful detail during one fall tournament where Schafer hit 17 of 18 greens, didn’t miss a fairway — and shot 71.

Freshman Will Tanaka, who finished seventh at last month’s Orange County Collegiate Classic at Coto de Caza, and senior Patrick Ordonez, who won a tournament playing as an individual last year, are the wild cards. How they progress over the next month will go a long way in determining how well the Titans fare — and how many more impromptu phone calls and meatball surgeries on team dynamics await Drotter.

“We have a massive hill to climb, but this is my job. I’m not going to give up on them, and I’m not going to give up on this year,” he said. “I will do everything in my power to climb that hill and get them ready. We’re going to work hard, right the ship and see what we can do.”