BREWSTER, Mass. — Bottom of the ninth. Two outs. Two on. Brewster down a run. The tying run at second. The comeback was alive—barely, but alive.

Just two innings earlier, it felt unthinkable. Through seven, Brewster hadn’t recorded a hit. The dugout was flat. The crowd was silent. Head coach Jamie Shevchik didn’t sugarcoat it—calling it “a snooze fest,” and saying it felt like they were “playing in a funeral home.”

Then came the eighth. Brewster broke up the no-hitter, pieced together a rally, and clawed back to tie it — only to give the lead right back in the ninth. Still, the door was open.

With two runners on, up came Adam Magpoc (San Diego State), just days removed from a 3-for-4 performance that included his first home run and two RBIs. The crowd, suddenly alive, leaned forward. Scott Newman (Georgia) stood at second, the tying run. A base hit would send him flying home. A ball in the gap might win it.

This was the moment. The magic felt real.

And then—one pitch. A slow roller to third. Tag. Game over.

All that hope, erased in an instant. A night that flirted with the miraculous ended with a whimper. The rally stopped cold. No walk-off. No storybook finish. Just silence again.

Brewster has struggled all season in the so-called “low energy” games—those days where, from the very first pitch, it’s clear something’s missing. Tuesday was no different. A near no-hit effort at the plate and dominant Wareham pitching left the Whitecaps playing catch-up late, but the hole was too deep. A four-run showing from the Gatemen (12-13), highlighted by a two-run homer, proved just enough to outlast Brewster’s (14-10) late push in a 4–3 loss.

Despite Brewster’s season-long dominance — entering Tuesday with the best record in the Cape — this marked the second time the ‘Caps carried a no-hit line into the eighth inning. And just like in June against Y-D, they broke it up late. But unlike that night, when they never threatened, Brewster nearly pulled off the impossible this time.

“We kind of beat ourselves for the first couple innings,” Shevchik said. “You’re getting no-hit through the eighth inning, and you just had that vibe that the guys weren’t into it… We had a lot of lethargic, boring at-bats, and couldn’t get a ball to fall. It’s not like they were making web gems all over the field either.”

Brewster sleepwalked through the early innings — little energy, no momentum, and no hits. The only thing keeping them in the game was the work from the arms that handled the early innings.

Lance Davis (TCU) gave Brewster three solid innings of one-run ball. His last outing against Wareham saw him strike out eight across four hitless frames. This time around, the Gatemen made better contact, but Davis still struck out three and gave his team a chance.

That set the stage for two debuts: Edwin Alicea (South Florida) and Ryan Piech (Xavier). Just weeks ago, Shevchik pointed to a thin bullpen limiting his options. Now, with Alicea and Piech as arms 14 and 15, Brewster suddenly has depth — maybe too much. But on the Cape, it's about getting guys work, and aside from one mistake from Alicea, both newcomers impressed.

That mistake came in the sixth. Brewster had tied the game an inning earlier without a hit — thanks to a throwing error, a tag-up, and a wild pitch that brought Ryan Martin (Dallas Baptist) home. But after a seven-pitch walk to Chris McHugh (NC State), Alicea left one up, and Kollin Ritchie (Oklahoma State) made him pay with a two-run shot to right, giving Wareham a 3-1 lead.

Suddenly, Brewster — still hitless, somehow still in it — needed an answer. The Ritchie homer felt like the unraveling point. But once again, Brewster’s arms steadied things. Piech fired two scoreless innings with three strikeouts, giving the Whitecaps one more chance.

At that point, it didn’t feel like a comeback was in the cards. The focus shifted to avoiding the no-hitter.

Then came the eighth.

Colton Coates (Louisiana Tech) drew a leadoff walk, but whatever flicker that sparked quickly dimmed — Carson Tinney (Texas) grounded out, and Michael Anderson (Penn State) went down swinging. Another empty frame felt all but certain.

But patience rewrote the script. Magpoc battled for a walk. Cal Fisher (Florida State) followed with one of his own. Still hitless, Brewster had the tying run on second — and Alex Sosa (Miami) stepping in with the game dangling by a thread.

One pitch changed everything. Sosa cracked a grounder into center field, scoring Coates and Magpoc. Moments earlier, Brewster was flirting with a no-hitter. Now the game was tied, and the ‘Caps were alive — with everything to play for.

“Throughout that game, they threw me a lot of off-speed pitches,” Sosa noted. “I think there at the end, they thought that I was expecting more of them, and I was just hunting that fastball… Then I just stayed with my approach, and I got a good pitch, and I hit it up the middle.”

But Wareham had a final punch to throw. Chris Knier (Florida State) gave up a leadoff double in the top of the ninth. A sac bunt moved the runner to third. Colby Turner (Michigan) dropped a bloop just inside the left-field line. Anderson’s throw home wasn’t in time — 4–3, Gatemen.

Still, the ‘Caps wouldn’t go quietly.

Collin Priest (Clemson) surprised everyone in the bottom of the ninth with a perfectly placed bunt single—“one of the coolest things I’ve seen so far out here this summer,” Shevchik said. Not the typical play for a power hitter, but it worked. Newman pinch-ran, Coates bunted him over, Tinney struck out, and Anderson, who was nearly out himself, kept the rally alive by reaching first on catcher’s interference.

Two on, two outs, Magpoc at the plate—once again, a slow roller to third ended the rally. The promise fizzled as quickly as it had flared.

“I'll give them some credit, because obviously they got there, they woke their asses up in the eighth to tie it up,” Shevchik admitted. “We still had an opportunity to score, right? Just couldn't do it. This is one of those games where you sit back at the end of the year and you hope that it doesn't cost you something, right? Because we didn't show up to play today.”

Title photo credit: Casey Bayne.