COTUIT, Mass. — Just as they’ve done so many times over the past four summers, the Bourne Braves made history at Lowell Park on Friday.
After dropping game one of the West Championship Series to the Cotuit Kettleers, Bourne stormed back, taking game two at Doran Park to set up a winner-take-all game three. While they fell behind in the third inning on Friday, the Braves benefited from strong pitching and an offensive surge in the sixth to win, 5-3, becoming the first team to reach four straight Cape Cod Baseball League Championship Series since Cotuit did it from 1983 to 1985.
“I’m not looking at the past right now,” field manager Scott Landers, who advanced to his third straight Championship with Bourne on Thursday, said. “I’m just proud of what the guys have done and accomplished this year. We got behind the eight-ball in this series and we came back and won two. We’ve got to go on to the championship and win two more games.”
The top of Bourne’s lineup continued to produce, as outfielder Ethan Conrad (Wake Forest) picked up his fourth straight first-inning leadoff knock. He attacked the first pitch he saw, slamming a double off of the left-field wall and scoring thanks to a pair of wild pitches from righty Bryce McKnight (Arizona).
But during the bottom of the inning, the same miscues that hurt the Braves in game one of the series resurfaced two days later.
Two fielding errors helped Cotuit load the bases with one out, placing southpaw Joe Ariola (Wake Forest) in a precarious situation. A four-pitch walk to designated hitter Devin Taylor (Indiana) tied the game, 1-1, but Ariola got the two outs he needed to minimize the damage.
Catcher Chase Meggers (Oregon) kept his team’s success early in counts rolling in the second, barreling up a first-pitch fastball and crushing a leadoff blast into right-center field.
“I was just trying to find a good pitch to hit,” Meggers said. “I was being aggressive early, I got the pitch that I wanted, and I just swung hard and it happened.”
However, Cotuit countered that long ball with two of their own. Catcher Grant Jay (Dallas Baptist) and first baseman Tanner Thach (UNC Wilmington) went yard in the second and third respectively, putting their team up 3-2 heading into the fourth.
Aside from the two solo shots, though, Ariola did his job through six innings, continuing a trend of Bourne’s starting pitchers going deep into games this series, as righties Chase Meyer (West Virginia) and Tyler Fay (Alabama) each went five-plus frames in the previous two contests. The southpaw used a series of off-speed pitches — a slider, cutter and changeup — that forced the Kettleers into several whiffs. When his day was finished, he had six strikeouts and only one walk to his name.
“It was just a game of adjustments,” Ariola said. “I’m assuming their scouting report was to be on the heater early, because five of their hits came on the heaters… I had to make sure I was able to get off the heater and use it to my advantage. Then the adjustment I made with [assistant coach Jarrod Saltalamachia] and [Landers] was, ‘We’re going to start spinning.’ Then I started spinning, and they had no chance on it.”
Bourne's offense eventually found a groove with their starter holding it down on the bump. To start the sixth, Meggers and first baseman David Lewis (Virginia Tech) singled consecutively before second baseman Blake Barthol (Coastal Carolina) was plucked by righty Aidan Hunter (Charleston), juicing the bases.
The reliever was then pulled by Cotuit field manager Mike Roberts for right-hander Tyler O’Neill (Bucknell), who started game two on Wednesday, throwing 47 pitches through two innings. Bourne took advantage of his short rest immediately.
Outfielder Isaiah Jackson (Arizona State) tied the game with a deep sacrifice fly into right field, and O’Neill spiked a pitch into the dirt, allowing Meggers to score. Outfielder Chris Stanfield (LSU) then grounded straight to Thach at first, but an errant throw home helped Barthol cross the dish, giving the Braves a newfound 5-3 lead.
“We went down and we didn’t panic,” Landers said. “We just knew that they were out of pitching, and just stay the course and we’d be okay. And we did.”
From the seventh inning on, Bourne turned to its lights-out bullpen that allowed the second-fewest earned runs in the league during the regular season. Lefty Kyle LaCalameto (Houston) fanned three and only allowed two hits in two scoreless frames, setting the table for righty Packy Bradley-Cooney (Alabama) to close out the game.
Bradley-Cooney did just that, facing the minimum in a 12-pitch ninth and keeping the Braves’ hopes at a three-peat alive and well.
“It’s awesome,” Ariola said. “The guys here, everyone plays for one another. We’re going to bring this home for Bourne, it’s going to be great.”
A Look Ahead
Bourne now only has one team — the scorching Harwich Mariners — standing between them and their third straight title. However, it won’t be easy, as their opponent has been playing its best baseball during the postseason.
After a tumultuous start to July that saw them go 2-17 in their first 19 contests, the Mariners rattled off wins in six of their last eight to fight their way to the third seed in the East Division. The Mariners then marched into Veterans Field and used late-game heroics to stun the two-seeded Chatham Anglers, but their most impressive feat was still yet to come.
Facing the Yarmouth-Dennis Red Sox, winners of the CCBL’s regular-season title, in the best-of-three East Championship Series, Harwich took game one on the road, 10-2, and clinched its spot in the title series in front of their home crowd with a 5-1 game two victory.
While Harwich is a higher seed than Bourne, the Braves finished the regular season with eight more wins, giving them home-field advantage in the series. Game one will be on Saturday at Doran Park with first pitch slated for 6 p.m. Both team’s starting pitchers are to be determined.
Notes
Braves General Manager Darin Weeks is the first GM in the modern era to reach four straight CCBL Championships… Conrad extended his hitting streak to 17 games with a 1-for-5 showing at the plate on Friday… Houston’s on-base streak is now at 19 games, as he drew two walks and recorded a hit against Cotuit… Lewis has eight hits in his first seven games on the Cape, contributing a double and three RBI… Harwich (2.33) and Bourne (2.57) rank No. 2 and No. 3 respectively in ERA during the postseason.
