The longest – and, by extension, one of the best – finals game in Cape Cod Baseball League history ended at 11:32 p.m., 15 innings in the books and the Cotuit Kettleers celebrating.
The Kettleers won a marathon in game one of the championship series, prevailing 7-6 in 15 innings. League MVP Nick Gonzales (New Mexico State) broke a tie that had lasted five innings with an RBI single in the top of the 15th. Kyle Nicolas (Ball State) then completed a dominant performance by the Cotuit bullpen, following Richard Brereton’s (Emory) six one-hit innings with a scoreless bottom of the 15th to seal the win.
The story of a game like that is best told from a first-hand perspective, so check out the Cotuit game story and the Cape Cod Times recap. Here, we’ll run through some notes from the craziness.
– Gonzales went 3-for-6 with three RBI. He’s now hitting .387 in the playoffs, which includes the go-ahead home run in the second game of the West finals. If Cotuit wins it all, Gonzales may have another MVP trophy to take back home.
– Brereton delivered a tremendous performance. You always figure the home team has an advantage in extra innings, but that was not the case for Harwich against Brereton. He took over in the bottom of the ninth and didn’t allow a hit until the 14th. He did walk four, which gave Harwich some opportunities, but they couldn’t do anything with them. Amazingly, Brereton came into the game with a 5.79 ERA. And his longest previous outing was four innings.
– Other stars for Cotuit: Oraj Anu (Wallace CC) went 3-for-6 with a homer and three RBI, Oviedo went 4-for-7 with two runs scored, and Schmitt and Coltyn Kestler (Kentucky) had two hits each.
– For Harwich, Pat Winkel (UConn) hit two home runs, the second of which gave the Mariners the 6-4 lead in the eighth. Dylan Neuse (Texas Tech) added three hits and Joey Wiemer, Jr. (Cincinnati) had two. Nick Zwack (Xavier) pitched 3.1 scoreless innings of relief.
– Cotuit forced extra innings in an unlikely spot – with Joe Boyle (Notre Dame) on the mound for Harwich. The flame-throwing righty came on to protect a 6-4 lead. A one-out walk and base hits by Casey Schmitt (San Diego State) and Mason McWhorter (Georgia Southern) pulled Cotuit within one. Boyle responded with a strikeout of Parker Chavers (Coastal Carolina) for the second out, but Adam Oviedo (Oral Roberts) singled to plate Schmitt with the tying run. To his credit, Boyle came back to pitch three straight scoreless innings, but the damage had been done.
– The Mariners missed a number of chances to walk off with a win. They left a runner on second in the ninth, stranded runners on second and third in the 11th and left a runner at third in the 14th, after finally getting a hit off Brereton.
– In 15 innings and on 61 balls in play, there was just one error made. Cotuit committed it in the 11th inning on a stolen base overthrow. Other than that, the teams were perfect.
And so, with one game – plus two-thirds of another game – finally complete, the teams will head to Lowell Park for the second game of the series. Cotuit has an opportunity to win the title at home after its last two championship-clinching victories both came on the road.