BREWSTER, Mass. — The Brewster Whitecaps found themselves hitless heading into the fourth inning against the Hyannis Harbor Hawks, and while that trend would continue for a few innings longer, right fielder Frankie Carney (UC Irvine) offered a spark.

The Anteater worked a five-pitch walk, stole second base with no outs, and stole third with one, putting the Whitecaps in prime position to strike with the powerful catcher Jacob Lee (Virginia Commonwealth) up next.

In a 2-1 count, Lee delivered, sending a flyball out to center field, where Harbor Hawks center fielder Tanner Chun (Hawaii) camped underneath it. For a lesser runner, it might not have been deep enough to tag and score, but with Carney’s speed, it was only a question of how close a play it would be.

As Carney slid into home plate, manufacturing a run almost entirely with his legs, Brewster (3-2) took a 1-0 lead that it would never give up, going on to beat Hyannis (1-4) for the second time this summer, 3-1. With violent winds blowing toward the outfield at Stony Brook Field on Thursday afternoon, it seemed like the kind of game where the big bats could take over, but instead it was swiftness and grit that won the day.

“It felt like 80 mph winds going straight out of the ballpark,” Whitecaps manager Jamie Shevchik said. “These are the days where you expect a 15-12 game, and it’s going to wind up being a 2-1 game or a 1-0 game with very little hit.”

The Whitecaps only recorded a single extra-base hit against Hyannis, but even that, a double off the bat of second baseman Alexander Peck (Arkansas) in the eighth inning, was a blooper down the right field line, landing where nobody was.

Brewster’s only other hit came in the sixth inning off the bat of left fielder Jay Abernathy (Oklahoma) — who was making his Whitecaps debut — and didn’t leave the infield.

Before the left-handed batter stepped up to the plate to lead off the frame, Shevchik pulled the new guy aside and told him to take what was given if the left-on-left matchup against reliever Sax Matson (Southern California) was uncomfortable.

Abernathy, however, wasn’t going to wait around and see what kind of at-bat he was going to have, taking Hyannis by surprise with a drag bunt that sent the ball tumbling down the first base line, easily reaching safely.

“That was my plan going into it,” Abernathy said. “After (Shevchik) told me that, just be able to see the slider, I saw it up, and then just got it down. That was just the plan there to get it down first pitch.”

With the first hit of the day on the board, Abernathy got back to the playbook that Carney had exemplified earlier on.

In a 2-0 count, with Carney at the plate, he broke for second, swiping the bag as the ball rolled into the outfield. Not done yet, he jumped to his feet and scampered to third.

The second run of the game was now just 90-feet away.

“I think (speed’s) the most important part of my game,” Abernathy said. “Being able to showcase that and show what I can do on the bases means a lot.”

After Abernathy’s escapades on the basepaths, Matson was unable to get back into his at-bat against Carney, walking him on four pitches. The southpaw had no way of knowing it at the time, but his troubles were just getting started.

With Carney at first, Matson fired over a pickoff attempt that got away from Harbor Hawks first baseman Trey Hawsey (Ole Miss), allowing Abernathy to head home as Carney motored around to third, later scoring on another sacrifice fly, this time courtesy of Jamie Laskofski (North Carolina).

“We’re going to be ultra aggressive,” Shevchik said. “We’re going to put pressure on the defense. That’s why we recruited the type of team that we have with the Adam Magpoc’s and the Jay Abernathy’s.

“They made a mistake that really cost them, and we just limited the damage.”

The one run that Hyannis was able to bring home against the Whitecaps pitching staff occurred in the seventh inning, when shortstop Charlie Bates (Stanford) reached on a walk against RHP Zach Kmatz (Oregon State), advanced to second on a single, got balked over to third and scored on a groundout.

Apart from that blip, Brewster’s arms did exactly what they needed to do, putting in their best collective performance of the season. Right-handed starter Ethan Grim (Virginia Tech) set the standard with three innings of no-hit baseball, striking out six, and was picked up by Joshua Whritenour (Florida), Kmatz and Schuyler Sandford (Florida), who picked up his first save of the season.

As a staff, Brewster allowed just one run, two hits and four walks — A number that Shevchik was happy with after the team allowed five or more walks in each of its first four games.

“Games are won and lost by controlling the baseball,” Shevchik said. “(When) you have traffic on the bases, there’s going to be an error. If you’re going to load guys up every inning and put pressure on your defense to spin a double-play ball all the time or get yourself out of a jam, then the s— is going to hit the fan.”

Pitching, small ball and chaos improved the Whitecaps to 3-2, but the team that's tied for the Cape Cod Baseball League lead in home runs with four is more than just an old-school throwback.

“We got guys like (Jacob) Lee, Owen Jenkins that can put the ball out at any time,” Abernathy said. “To have both sides of the world with that (type of) baseball, I think we (can) create havoc any way.”