McCarthy Crowned Big West Men’s Track AOY; Vanhoy Named Coach of the Year

In Vanhoy’s third full year at the helm, the Cal Poly men’s track and field team repeated as Big West Champions this spring using an astonishing 114 points from Vanhoy’s distance squad to claim their second Big West title in program history. Vanhoy’s distance crew won five individual conference titles on the men’s side (800, 1,500, 3,000 steeplechase, 5,000 and 10,000) to lead the way and set the tone for the Mustangs.

The Cal Poly men posted a program record 14 entries in the NCAA West Preliminaries and went onto qualify three athletes for the NCAA Outdoor Championships, tied for the most individual NCAA qualifiers by the Cal Poly men’s team in the Division I era, joining the 1979 squad. The three All-Americans, including a pair of First Teamers, allowed the Mustang men to earn their fifth highest team finish ever at the NCAA Division I meet and their best since 2000. Cal Poly finished in a tie with four other schools for 37th with 8 team points, tied for the second most team points the Mustang men have scored at the Division I meet. Vanhoy coached McCarthy to First Team All-American honors indoors and outdoors this year.

Speaking of McCarthy, the Pleasanton, Calif. native continued to add to his legendary career this spring, placing fifth overall in the men’s 800-meter at the NCAA Outdoor Championships to earn First Team All-American honors outdoors for the second time in his career and the first time since 2023. The performance outdoors coupled with his third-place finish at this year’s NCAA Indoor Championships allowed McCarthy to become the eighth three-time NCAA Division I First Team All-American in program history and first since Sharon Day-Monroe earned All-American status seven times across her career (2004-08). McCarthy also became the first Cal Poly athlete since Day-Monroe in 2008 to achieve a pair of Division I All-American finishes in the same event during a year.

This is the ninth time a Cal Poly athlete has won the Big West Men’s Track Athlete of the Year award and McCarthy is the Mustangs’ second multiple-time winner, joining five-time All-American Kaaron Conwright (1998, 2000).

The career best finish at the NCAA outdoor meet capped off an incredible year by McCarthy. The three-time NCAA West Preliminaries qualifier earned Big West Men’s Track Athlete of the Meet honors this year after scoring 20 team points in Cal Poly’s conference championship victory. He broke the Jack Rose Track facility record in the 800 (1:46.62) en route to claiming his third career Big West title in the event, joining Mark Schilling (1973-77) as the only athletes in conference history to win three championships in the event. He also obliterated the Big West meet record in the men’s 1,500 by over three seconds (3:39.35) to capture his first conference title in the event, helping him become just the fifth Big West athlete ever to sweep the men’s 800 and 1,500.

This year, McCarthy broke school records in the outdoor 800, indoor 800, indoor 1,000 and mile, became the third men’s Division I indoor All-American in school history and first since 1973, and ran the fastest indoor 800 by an American in collegiate history (1:45.19) at the BU Last Chance National Qualifier.

The year to remember for McCarthy comes after he missed the entire 2024 outdoor season and nearly the entire indoor season due to a stress fracture in his foot. McCarthy will return next season and has one year of eligibility left in both indoor and outdoor track, and no eligibility remaining in cross country.