The Sag Harbor Whalers Win Their First-Ever HCBL Championship In Thrilling Fashion

The Sag Harbor Whalers, the original and longest tenured franchise of the Hamptons Collegiate Baseball League, have their first championship in hand.

A thrilling best-of-three HCBL Championship series ended in the same fashion on the Whalers’ home field at Mashashimuet Park on Sunday. With the game tied, 5-5, D.J. Perron Jr. (UMass-Dartmouth) led off the bottom of the ninth with a double to deep right center field. The following batter, Wyatt Benson (Hope International), was called upon to bunt Perron to third base, and he did, getting the bunt down along the third base line. Ryan Miller (Norwich), who had really stepped up for the Aviators in relief, hurling three shutout innings after coming in for starting pitcher Michael DiForte (City College), jumped off the mound and fielded the ball. The Speonk native and Westhampton Beach High School graduate attempted to get Perron at third, but he threw the ball too high and off the glove of third baseman Sean Keys (Bucknell), the ball heading up the left field line, allowing Perron to score the game-winning and title-clinching win, 6-5.

It was a somewhat fitting end to what was an overall tightly played series. The Whalers, after falling behind the first game of the series, 5-2, came back to win that game on Friday, 6-5. The Aviators forced a game three when they won what was a slug fest in game two, 12-7, with six home runs hit in that game in Westhampton, three by each team.

But now the Whalers, the team that started it all as the Hampton Whalers in 2008 having played in the Atlantic Collegiate Baseball League that year, have their first-ever league title. Sag Harbor ended what was a 12-year playoff drought this summer and had swept the Southampton Breakers in the semifinals in what was another hard played series to reach the championship.

“The whole season, these guys have been working hard, getting in the right position the whole time, and I knew it was going to come down to something like that — a passed ball or a wild pitch, an error — and we just capitalized on those opportunities all year,” first-year manager Jacob Tobin said of his Sag Harbor players. “I give all the credit to the guys because they stayed in it the whole game. There was not one game where I thought we were out of it. The whole time we were in it, even when we were down big.

“This team came back a lot, they came back today, they came back pretty much during every game during the season and during the playoffs, so I just can’t say enough about their resiliency.”

Tobin said it was nice to see Perron, the league’s Bob Furlong Award winner this season, battle through a hand injury all summer and then come up big in that final inning. Perron, the Swansea, Massachusetts, native who played his second summer on the Whalers this season, said it was fundamental baseball instincts that helped him score that game-winning run.

“What ran through my mind was simple baseball at the time — I just knew that, first and second, Wyatt’s up, he’s going to get the bunt down. As soon as I see the ball down, just absolutely run as hard as I can to third,” he explained. “When I slid into third, I saw the ball kick over the third baseman’s glove and go to left field. At that point, I just knew I had home. That’s all she wrote.”

The Aviators tried scoring on a somewhat similar play in the top of the ninth, when a wild pitch went to the backstop and Mason Wolf (Monmouth) tried scoring what would have been the go-ahead run from third base. But Sag Harbor catcher Ike Kiely (Babson) got to the ball quickly, and pitcher Brett Borcherding (Rose-Hulman IT) covered home plate and quickly slapped the tag to get Wolf out at the plate and end the inning, leading to the heroics in the bottom half off the inning.

“I was getting gassed at the end, and I have an old habit that I yank and throw to the backstop. But I can thank my coach at Rose-Hulman, Adam Rosen, for teaching me to cover home plate and telling the catcher, ‘Back! Back! Back!’ We worked on that a lot this season, I’ll tell you that, it was beat into us,” Borcherding chuckled.

Borcherding, who splits time between New York City and East Hampton, was credited with the win after firing two shutout innings. It was his second summer with the Whalers, who finished in last place last year. The win was really special for Borcherding, who, along with his teammates, were surrounded by kids asking for autographs after the game.

“It’s amazing. I was a little camper, like these guys, and I was chasing foul balls the last time the Whalers were in the playoffs — and it’s just a great experience,” he said. “This year, to finally win the championship, growing up watching the Whalers and to finally do it, it’s just great.”

It was a tough blow for Westhampton, which was looking to win its fifth HCBL title in franchise history. But ultimately, the eight errors the Aviators committed in the field were the deciding factor. Still, first-year manager Jason Jacome didn’t think that defined his team’s season.

“We had a great team. We played as good as I ever could imagine us playing,” he said. “We had a lot of guys who went out and battled their butts off every game, who gave it their all at the end. Today we just couldn’t handle the baseball. We made a lot of errors, a lot of unearned runs, but it is what it is. They gave it their all, fought to the very end. It just didn’t work out, but that’s the way the game goes. It was a good group of guys, a good team that got along together. It was a pleasure to coach these guys.”

Whaler Cam Santerre (Rhode Island), who went 2 for 5 with a double and a run scored on Sunday, was named the championship series Most Valuable Player. In the three game series, Santerre went an impressive 11 for 22, scored nine runs and — perhaps most impressive — stole 10 bases. And, as his manager pointed out, played a strong outfield all season long.

Santerre batted .271 during the regular season and stole 14 bases, not terrible numbers by any means but not really up to what he would have liked. When the hits started falling early in the postseason, he gained confidence with each one leading up to his championship series performance.

But it was words by his manager in Tobin that helped guide the team this season, he said.

“This summer was really fun,” Santerre said. “I knew coming in it was going to be a fun experience. I remember the first day we were practicing, and Coach Tobin was talking to me. And he was like, ‘When it comes down to the end of the season, it’s going to be long, it’s going to be tough and you’re probably going to want to go home, people are going to get homesick. But it’s going to be about you guys getting together as a team and wanting to stay.’ And it really felt like we had some team members step up as leaders to really keep us together. I’m really glad that we were able to stick it out because this is really worth it.”

Tobin, who started with the Whalers four years ago as a volunteer coach before taking over the team as manager this summer, said it was special bringing home a championship to Sag Harbor.

“I saw the potential this place had, the fan base it had, the general manager — [Sandi Kruel] was the general manager at that time and now she’s president — and I could tell this place was due for bigger and better things and it’s nice to witness that,” he explained. “For the most part, with coaching the guys all year, I just let them play baseball. I just got out of their way a little bit. It’s summer. They’re here to learn about themselves and the game, and that’s what happened. They learned about themselves and maybe they learned a little more, too, maybe they learned they can be champions.”

As league president, Kruel tries her best to keep her emotions out of baseball operations, but, with the help of Rusty Leaver and others, she was at the forefront of bringing free college summer baseball to the East End with the Hamptons Whalers, back in 2008. And, after all, Sag Harbor is her hometown.

“I’ve been doing this since 2008 and these two teams together were the most dynamic championship series that I could have ever asked for. And, honestly, it could have gone either way at any moment,” she said. “Now, having the Whalers win their first HCBL Championship is extremely special, for them, for me, for their community. And you look around and you see 400 people at a game — it’s nice to be able to bring it home to that community, and it just so happens to be my community.

“But I have to tell you, I was talking to the Aviators before, and I don’t usually cry, but I actually welled up because they were such an impressive team. They were managed so well,” Kruel continued. “Their field ambiance, everything about them was great. So it was certainly an amazing experience, an amazing way to wrap up the season. I couldn’t have asked for anything better.”

Wanting to enjoy the final moments of the season, all Kruel said about next season was that, “the baseballs are ordered for next year,” and this time they will have her own signature on them.

HCBL Commissioner Jim Pereira lauded the league’s coaches and players for what was another outstanding summer on the fields with competitive play right up until the very last play. He admitted he enjoyed watching Sag Harbor win the championship — he did manage the team for a few seasons in the past and Tobin was his assistant. But at the end of the day, it’s about putting a good product out on the field, and both the Aviators and Whalers did just that.

As the Whalers were celebrating their championship victory, and Pereira was making sure everything was set for the postgame ceremonies, he stepped on a ball, which just so happened to be the game ball. He put it in his pocket, and as he and Kruel were giving away championship T-shirts to the players, he gave her the ball.

“I said, ‘I got something for you,’” Pereira said he told Kruel. “She goes, ‘What do you have?’ I could tell she’s choked up. I said, ‘Here’s the game ball. This is yours,’ and she started crying. She deserves it.”