And we thought three championships in four years was good.
The streak that first inspired the talk of a Yarmouth-Dennis dynasty has to take a backseat now. With a 3-0 win over Falmouth Saturday in game three of the title series, the Red Sox won their third consecutive Cape Cod Baseball League crown, and the dynasty reached new territory.
No team had won more than two consecutive league championships since 1975, when Cotuit won its fourth in a row. Since then, five teams had won two in a row but couldn’t make it three.
Y-D has also now won six championships in 13 years. Again, that puts Y-D in the neighborhood of the Cotuit teams of the 1970s and early 1980s, which at one point won seven crowns in a 13-year span.
You can also throw in the two championship series losses in 2010 and 2012. That means Y-D has played for the title eight times in 13 years.
Whatever measuring stick you use, it’s a remarkable achievement.
The championship came out of a series deficit for the second year in a row. Falmouth – seeking its first Cape League title since 1980 and looking to avenge a loss to Y-D in the 2014 championship series – opened with a bang.
But Y-D out-slugged the Commodores Friday to stay alive. Saturday was a different kind of game, but Y-D won that one, too.
Bryan Sammons (Western Carolina) followed almost exactly in the footsteps of last year’s game-three hero Brandon Bailey, who pitched six shutout innings. Sammons did the same, striking out six, allowing just two hits and escaping damage from five walks.
Playing from behind for the second day in a row, Falmouth couldn’t get a rally going against the Y-D bullpen, as William Montgomerie (Connecticut) and Calvin Faucher (UC Irvine) combined for three hitless innings of relief.
At the plate, early offense again carried the day for the Red Sox, who scored a run in the first and two in the second. Dillon Persinger (Cal State Fullerton) led off the game with a double, moved to third on a sac bunt and came home on a Kevin Smith (Maryland) sacrifice fly.
In the second, Matt Winaker (Stanford) doubled, Deon Stafford (St. Joseph’s) scored on a balk and Nolan Brown (TCU) plated a run with a base hit.
Falmouth starter Jake Bird (UCLA), who was riding of three straight solid starts, departed after an inning and a third. George Capen (Holy Cross), who spent most of his summer in the NECBL, did yeoman’s work in relief with 4.1 scoreless innings and Brett Gilchrist (Dallas Baptist) got the Commodores out of a jam in the sixth and went 2.1 scoreless. Stephen Villines (Kansas) pitched a quiet ninth.
But keeping the score where it was didn’t lead to a victory for the Commodores. After Sammons finished strong, Montgomerie struck out the side in the seventh. Faucher stopped Falmouth’s best chance in the eighth, striking out back-to-back batters with two men on base. He ended up fanning four of the six batters he faced, including the last one, as Y-D raced onto the field for another championship celebration.
The dynasty lived – and it looks even better.