UC San Diego women's soccer will host defending Big West champion Cal Poly at 6 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 3, at Triton Soccer Stadium in La Jolla, with both teams at 1-0-1 in conference play entering the week.

The Tritons (5-2-3 overall as of Monday, Sept. 28) finished seventh in the Big West last season, missing the top-six cutoff for the conference championship playoffs. Cal Poly won the 2025 Big West Tournament title and reached the NCAA Tournament for the first time in 21 years, falling to top-seeded Stanford 3-1 in the first round, according to the Mustangs' athletics department.

The Big West preseason coaches' poll, released Aug. 5, picked Cal Poly and UC Santa Barbara as co-favorites for the 2026 title. UC San Diego landed ninth of 12 teams with 45 points.

The Tritons have outpaced that projection through their first two conference matches. UCSD opened Big West play with a 1-0 shutout of CSUN on Sept. 23 and a 2-2 draw against Utah Valley on Sept. 26, collecting four points. UCSD visits California Baptist on Wednesday, Sept. 30, in a Big West match before returning home for the Cal Poly game.

Goalkeeper Charlotte Wilfert has been the standout. The redshirt sophomore from Thousand Oaks made 15 saves in the Utah Valley draw, breaking a 35-year-old UC San Diego single-match saves record, according to UCSD Athletics. The Big West named her Defensive Player of the Week on Monday, Sept. 28. She ranks second in the conference in goals-against average and total saves.

Head coach Kristin Jones, in her eighth season leading the program (60-51-29 overall), set the tone after a season-opening 2-0 loss to San Diego State on Aug. 12. Jones told the UCSD Guardian in an Aug. 24 postgame interview that she expected the team to climb: "I have a feeling that we'll finish a bit higher than [ninth] when all is said and done."

Cal Poly (4-3-3) brings firepower. The Mustangs return 2025 Big West Offensive Player of the Year Annika Smith and two-year captain Sophia Minnite. Freshman Madison Lujan earned Big West Freshman of the Week honors after scoring in a 2-1 win over California Baptist, according to the conference. Goalkeeper Shannon Porubski, a 2025 All-Big West Freshman Team selection, recorded nine shutouts last season.

The Oct. 3 match is the eighth all-time meeting between the programs. Cal Poly leads the series 5-2-0, including a 2-0 win in San Luis Obispo on Sept. 25, 2025, when the Mustangs scored twice in a six-minute span in the second half, according to UCSD Athletics.

On the UCSD side, forward Ava Tibor, the 2025 Big West Freshman of the Year, enters with eight career goals, three shy of the program's Division I record. Senior midfielder and co-captain Alexis Nguyen needs one assist to claim sole possession of the Division I career assists record.

The match will stream live on ESPN+. It is also Alumni Night at Triton Soccer Stadium.

After the Cal Poly match, UCSD travels to UC Riverside on Saturday, Oct. 10, for a 7 p.m. conference kickoff.