Harwich Bests Brewster, Chatham Falls To Yarmouth-Dennis In East Semis

BREWSTER – Harwich pitchers Luke Morgan and Andrew Basel were just exiting the visitors’ dugout to return back to the bullpen at Stony Brook Field on Aug. 4 when Cade Kurland recorded the Mariners’ first hit of the day. 

It was the seventh inning of Game 1 of the East Division semifinals against the Brewster Whitecaps. The two teams were knotted in a scoreless affair, and the two-seed Whitecaps (25-12-3) had to that point held the three-seed Mariners (21-19) hitless — until Kurland (Florida/transfer to Louisiana State) shot a grounder right back to Brewster pitcher Noah Thigpen (Troy).

The baseball glanced off Thigpen’s glove, and Harwich at last had a base hit. Morgan (Oregon) and Basel (Northeastern) found themselves at that moment standing right behind the fenced door to the field. They knew they had to remain in that spot given the circumstances that had unfolded. They did, and the hits began rolling for Harwich. 

Back-to-back bunts confounded the Brewster infield, and Kurland came around to score. A Quinton Coats (Cincinnati) grounder that bounced from the glove of Whitecaps second baseman Will Baker (Georgia Tech), generously scored as a single, brought in another run. A wild pitch led to another. The half-inning ended, and Morgan and Basel were finally free to leave the lucky spot and continue on to the bullpen.

The Mariners went on to take Game 1 4-0, powered by a shutout split by Jason Flores (Texas/transfer to Georgia) and TJ Ziermann (UNC Wilmington).

“They just pounded the strike zone and made big pitches and let the defense work,” Harwich pitching coach Hunter Dilworth said. “So [they] did a huge thing to help us get through this series without using many pitchers.”

Flores struck out nine in five innings, surrendering just two hits and three walks. He escaped a bases-loaded jam with a strikeout to end his final frame of work.

“He was shoving it,” Ziermann said. “He's got incredible stuff.”

Ziermann entered the game and pitched a scoreless sixth, then the Mariners orchestrated their small ball rally, giving him a lead to work with the rest of the way.

“It helps out tremendously,” Ziermann said. “It takes so much stress off you and just allows you to go up there and pitch, not worried about guys getting little dinky hits and it being the end of the world.”

He finished with four strikeouts and one hit, one walk across four innings to close out the game.

The Mariners had a handful of pitchers targeted for use in Game 1 at Brewster but, with Flores’ and Ziermann’s masterful afternoon, only had to use two. That proved to be critical with what the rest of the playoffs turned out to have in store for Harwich, who felt like — according to Dilworth — they were playing with house money going into Game 2 back at Whitehouse Field with so many fresh arms.

“Only using two arms in a tournament like this is huge because we're playing every day, so I was glad I got to do that for our team,” Ziermann said.

Game 2 at home the next night began auspiciously for Harwich. They jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the fourth with a JP Peltier (Wright State/transfer to Kentucky) three-run homer. 

The Whitecaps responded in the top of the fifth with a three-run homer of their own from Edward Yamin IV (Louisiana State). They kept rallying and took a 4-3 lead that same inning, then a 5-3 lead in the seventh. 

But the Mariners quickly responded by tying the game back up, again with their patented style of forcing the opposing defense to execute tough, pressurized plays by making contact and taking advantage of mistakes. 

After a double, Tucker Stockman (Southern Mississippi) advanced to third on a wild pitch and scored on a Micah Rienstra-Kiracofe (Kent State) chopper right back to the pitcher. Colin Larson (Boston College) tripled to bring in Rienstra-Kiracofe.

Brewster loaded the bases in both the ninth and 10th innings, but the Harwich bullpen eluded damage each time. In the bottom of the 10th with Kurland on first, Sean O’Leary (UMass Lowell) smashed a double to right field to drive in the winning run. For the second season in a row, the Mariners had walked off the Whitecaps in the opening series of the Cape Cod Baseball League postseason.

“It's an absolute dream come true, just to, one, be down here and, two, to make an impact like that on this team, especially with all these guys that I've grown so close to,” O’Leary said days later. “It was awesome that I was able to be in that spot and that all that happened.”

Chatham broke an eight-year playoff victory drought by taking Game 1 of the East Division semifinals Aug. 4 against Yarmouth-Dennis but could not keep the milestone-making going by winning their first postseason series in that same span.

The four-seed Anglers (19-18-3) dealt the first blow in the opening round matchup with the one-seed Red Sox (28-11-1, the Cape League’s top regular season team this season) behind a strong start from Angel Cervantes (UCLA), the 2026 winner of the BFC Whitehouse Outstanding Pitcher Award.

Cervantes allowed two runs in five and two-thirds innings, striking out seven. Armani Guzman (West Virginia), Harlin Hovater (Meridian Community College/transfer to Mississippi State) and Tyler Howe (North Carolina) each homered, and the Anglers bullpen collectively staved off a three-run rally by the Red Sox in the bottom of the ninth at Red Wilson Field.

The 9-5 win was Chatham’s first in the postseason since 2018, also the last time they won a playoff series.

“It matters, but we just want to show up, compete every day and play to our best ability, and I think our kids did that,” said manager Dennis Cook, who was in his first year of a four-season tenure as Chatham’s pitching coach in 2018. “Kids played hard, and I'm proud of them for that.”

Game 2, a 1-0 loss at home, may be the game the Anglers would have liked to get back. Both starters, Chatham’s Christian Chatterton (Auburn) and Yarmouth-Dennis’ Brock Ketelsen (Stanford) were dominant — the former allowing no hits and striking out four in five innings and the latter striking out nine on two hits and a walk in five and two-thirds.

Ryder Robinson (Brigham Young) produced the game’s one and only run with a solo shot past the right field fence at Veterans Field in the top of the eighth. Peyton Rodgers (UC Irvine) closed the rest of the game out for the Red Sox, buoyed by seven strikeouts.

“We got hot towards the end of the year there; we were trying to ride that into the playoffs for sure, but their pitchers stepped up, and that's how baseball works sometimes,” Guzman said a day later.

The Red Sox hit three home runs en route to an 8-2 win in Game 3 to take the series. An Eddie Marshall (Samford/transfer to Florida) solo homer in the fourth cut the Yarmouth-Dennis lead to 3-1, but the Red Sox cruised from there. Jacob Driver (Meridian Community College) hit a pinch-hit solo home run in the ninth inning.

“I thought we played them pretty good for a couple games… Just ran out of juice, I think,” Cook said.