After a week and a half of winless baseball, the league-wide All-Star break temporarily alleviated the Whitecaps from any more pain and suffering.

During the break, eight Brewster players participated among the league’s best, and one of its biggest stars, Nick Dumesnil (Cal Baptist), rocketed a two-run home run in the game.

With the excitement of the midsummer classic and an off day Sunday, Monday’s contest had the chance to be a new age for the scuffling Whitecaps team. But again, it was a similar story. Brewster (12-21-2) could never catch up to a 6-0 deficit built in the second inning, falling, 10-5, to Cotuit (21-11-1) at Stony Brook Field.

The loss extended Brewster’s winless streak to eight (seven losses and one tie), dropping the team closer to the bottom of the East Division standings. With just five games to play, the Whitecaps need a solution in order to secure a playoff berth, and they need one quickly.

“Just don’t quit,” Brewster manager Jamie Shevchik said postgame. “I know the coaches aren’t, I'm not quitting. Five more games to go, I think the least that we can do is try to figure out a way to get out of this sh--ty slump that we’re in.”

Luke Guth (Vanderbilt) started his fifth game of the season for the Whitecaps on Monday afternoon. He’s been effective but inefficient, walking nine batters and rarely going past four innings. However, to start against the Kettleers, Guth needed just 12 pitches to retire the side in order.

In the next frame, though, the Cotuit offense — which entered with the second-best OPS in the CCBL with a .749 mark — quickly pummeled Guth. Two walks to lead off the inning advanced to third on a bunt single by Matt Klein (Louisville). Then with the bases loaded, a double by Jarren Advincula (California) scored two.

Another double scored one more run and Nolan Nawrocki (Clemson) drove in Klein with an infield error. The hit parade continued on for the Kettleers’ potent offense as Tanner Thach (UNC Wilmington) scored Tyler Cerny (Indiana) on a single, bringing the lead to 5-0.

“He started off the inning with two walks,” Shevchik said of Guth. “You got to be a really damn good pitcher with really good stuff to get out of that clean.”

From there, Guth was pulled for fellow Vanderbilt pitcher Levi Huesman. Entering with first and second filled, he allowed a single to left field, scoring one more run to cap off a six-run inning for Cotuit.

On the other side, Aidan Hunter (College of Charleston) excelled early for Cotuit. He put the Whitecaps' top of the order away in 13 pitches to start followed by the same amount in the second.

Brewster sported a different looking lineup, with power hitter Ryder Helfrick (Arkansas) in the leadoff spot, Dallas Macias (Oregon State) in the two-hole and batting average leader Dumesnil slipped to the seventh-spot. Early on, the newly adjusted puzzle pieces didn’t seem to make any difference to a team averaging 1.7 runs in its last seven games.

But in the third, Dumesnil — hot off his All-Star Game success — got a rally started with a leadoff walk. Then Brody Donay (Florida) hammered a ball off the right field wall, giving the Whitecaps their first hit of the day and making it second and third with no men down.

Nine-hole hitter Max Kaufer (South Carolina) sliced a ball just deep enough into center field to score Dumesnil on a sacrifice fly. Then, following a groundout to move Donay to third by Helfrick, Brewster rattled off three consecutive singles, clawing back further from the deficit.

Donay scored on a single by Macias before Daniel Cuvet (Miami) singled and Colby Shelton (Florida) did too to score Macias.

Kaeden Kent (Texas A&M) walked and Drew Faurot (Florida State) scored two on an infield single with a throw away by the Cotuit shortstop.

“There's no errors made when you strike out. There's no bad bounces on strikeouts. So we fought through a couple good at-bats. We strained together a couple decent hits,” Shevchik said.

The play forced a pitching change and all of a sudden, Brewster trailed by one with the tying run at third base. Dumensil lined out to left to end the threat, but the Whitecaps were back in the game. The five-run frame was the most runs scored in an inning since July 12 against Chatham.

“I thought we had better swings today,” Shevchik said. “We put up some runs, and that was definitely different than what we've gone through over the past eight games.”

The Whitecaps put two runners in scoring position in the fourth but Cuvet’s line out creeped up just enough for Cotuit center fielder Charles Davalan (Florida Gulf Coast) to thwart the opportunity.

While Brewster attempted to climb back into the game, Huesman settled in and kept the deficit to one. Through 3 2/3 innings, the lefty allowed just two hits and no earned runs, even retiring seven straight from the third to the fifth inning.

In the sixth, Cotuit tacked on two more runs to extend its lead to three, as Nawrocki drove in two on a single to left field. D.J. Primeaux (LSU) entered in the top of the seventh to keep Brewster in the game, but Davalan drove in two more and extended his team’s lead to five.

Boston Flannery (North Carolina) pitched scoreless innings in the eighth and ninth, but the Brewster offense could not continue its third-inning success, falling by five runs. Amid his team’s worst stretch of the season, Shevchik still sees the importance of keeping spirits high and fighting until the very end.

“I want to make sure that these guys are engaged,” Shevchik said. "Still, there's a lot of people in this organization. I think we just owe it to them to give our best. If we lose, we lose. Whatever it is. But we don't want to die. We don't want to quit.”