It was a hot start for Falmouth (11-16-2), but as the cliché saying goes, it's not how you start, it's how you finish.

The way the Commodores and the Whitecaps (19-7-3) finished Monday night's matchup at Guv Fuller Field couldn’t be any more different.

Falmouth found itself up 4-0 after two innings, a sizeable lead it hadn’t seen since its July 11 win over Bourne. 12 strikeouts later, the ‘Dores watched their record slip to five games below .500 after being shocked in extras by Brewster.

“We just got to finish,” said left fielder Carter White, who had the biggest swing of the day for Falmouth early on in the first inning. “We left some stuff on the table and you get beat when you don't play all facets of the game the right way.”

What the Commodores left “on the table” were nine runners, most of whom were in scoring position. In said instances, Falmouth went 3-for-15. Those three hits led to the first four runs of the game crossing the plate.

It started with a Brayden Jefferis (Michigan) infield single in the bottom of the first taking a hop off the outstretched glove of second baseman Tryston McCladdie (Clemson). Fabio Peralta (Miami), who smashed a leadoff double earlier in the frame, wheeled himself from second to home on the play. White followed up with a no-doubt two-run homer – the first for the Commodores in 17 days – after grinding out a six pitch at-bat against Brewster starter Tate DeRias (Baylor).

“He threw another one of those sliders and he just left it up,” he said. “I was able to put a good swing on it. But staying alive in that at-bat and seeing more pitches really set me up for success.”

Going into Monday’s game, DeRias had allowed only one run across his previous 11.1 innings. The ‘Dores scratched across three in one inning and tacked on one more before dispatching of the former Miami Hurricane, courtesy of Jefferis’ second single in as many plate appearances.

“He was a good arm, but we were ready for what he was going to bring us,” said White. “I think it starts from preparation. It starts from batting practice [and] what you're looking at on video. But I think as a whole, we did a good job of getting our pitch to do damage with and not giving into what he's throwing.”

Falmouth’s starter couldn’t have had a more contrasting performance to DeRias.

Colby Putnam (Gardner-Webb) pitched to contact through his five innings of one-run ball, inducing weak contact time and time again. He retired 17 of the 19 batters he faced, the only blemishes that were put on his statline being a walk (that was eventually wiped away by a 6-4-3 double play) and a solo home run from Eddie Yamin (LSU) in the top of the fifth.

Putnam kept the gameplan simple. “Get it in the zone, just don't walk people – walks kill you – let the fielders work, move [pitches] around, stay away from [batters]. Don't really go in unless you sneak it in there.”

And for the first seven innings, that’s what Falmouth did, allowing only one more (unearned) run in the sixth. But Brewster found its rhythm in the eighth, completely erasing the two-run deficit with a two-run double from Holden Pantier (). Blaine Brown followed suit, and the Whitecaps took a 5-4 lead in a flash.

That didn’t mean that the Commodores were done. In the bottom of the ninth, a one-out rally was found by some of the most critical pieces of the lineup.

It started with a single from Gavin Greger (Rutgers), followed by a pair of walks from Peralta and Austin Mallee (transfer portal). Jefferis came through with a sacrifice fly to score Greger and knot the score at 5-5.

“We're never out of it,” White said about the ninth inning rally. “One at bat leads to another [and it] leads to a big inning.”

The tenth inning, however, was where Brewster found the decisive blow: a two-RBI single from the red-hot Michael Torres (Miami), the eventual game winner that gave the Whitecaps the 7-5 victory.

“We had success early. That's kind of been our thing we get at,” said White on the biggest takeaway from the loss.

The main plus is that Falmouth’s bats got going early and gave its pitching staff the support it needed early on. The next step, according to White and company, is sustaining it across a full nine innings.

The bottom line? “Stick with the simple approach,” Carter says.

Falmouth takes on Harwich on Tuesday at Whitehouse Field. First pitch is set for 3:30 p.m.