A Familiar Face In Jacob Tobin Returns To Lead The Sag Harbor Whalers This Summer

There will be some familiar faces returning to Sag Harbor this summer to lead the Whalers of the Hamptons Collegiate Baseball League, and it starts at the top.

Jacob Tobin, whose time with the Whalers goes back four years to when he began as a volunteer coach, has returned as the team’s manager after Tom Walker stepped down at the end of the last season. During the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic Tobin coached in South Carolina and then last season coached for the Newark Pilots of the Perfect Game Collegiate Baseball League.

Tobin said it’s good to be back in Sag Harbor and credited HCBL President Sandi Kruel for his return.

“I’ve been working for her since she was the GM of Sag Harbor,” Tobin said. “I know Sandi pretty well. I’ve grown as she’s grown.”

The Whalers entered last season’s HCBL playoffs as one of the last teams in but outlasted the South Shore Clippers in 12 innings to win the wild card game and reach the semifinals against the eventual champion Southampton Breakers, who swept them in a best-of-three series.

Tobin said he has been part of summer league teams that have used what have become the two most used tactics across summer baseball — play to win or play to learn. He said he’ll be looking for a mix of both.

“I’ve been a part of Sag Harbor teams where the plan was for the best guys with the best numbers to play every game. It didn’t work out because the league is about development,” he explained. “When it was all about the best nine, that started out really well but it faded because our best nine guys got really, really tired.

“It’s about a competitive balance,” he continued. “We want to try and win each game, but we have to understand we have a lot of kids on the roster who want to play. We will find out who our best nine are, but it’ll come from a good mix of players.”

There are a handful of players returning for the Whalers this season. That includes Marika Lyszczyk (Rivier College), the first female to ever play NCAA baseball. She started her time last summer as a catcher but will focus solely on pitching this season, Tobin said. D.J. Perron (UMass-Dartmouth) and Brett Borcherding (Rose-Hulman IT) also returns, and John Lopez (St. Catharine College), who played for the Whalers three summers ago, is returning as well.

Although Tobin wasn’t involved with last year’s team, he’s well aware of Perron and what he brings to the table. The Swansea, Massachusetts, native just finished his junior season at UMass-Dartmouth where he batted .362 with nine home runs and 45 RBIs in 41 games.

“He’ll be good for us again this year. He went to the Cape after last summer,” Tobin said. “He can play seven positions, so he’s a super utility guy. Hits really well and he’s just a good guy to be around, a good team guy, which is huge for a summer team when you have a bunch of kids who have never met before. They meet a kid like D.J. and they can become a team in a couple days. That’s huge.”

Brock Murtha was one of the most highly touted players in Suffolk County by the time he graduated from Sayville High School two years ago. He turned a very successful high school career into an opportunity to play baseball at the University of Notre Dame. Murtha will now spend his summer in Sag Harbor with the Whalers, and Tobin is expecting a lot from him as a two-way player.

Tobin is also high on a pair of Bucknell pitchers he’ll have at his disposal this season in Ben Magovern and Nicholas Mulvey. Both are left-handed pitchers, and Magovern, as a freshman, threw over 50 innings for the Bison. Bobby Jones is another pitcher whom Tobin likes, having thrown over 25 innings this past season for Xavier. Sam Haney (Saint Peter’s) is someone Tobin knows through coaching at various points across the country and feels he’ll be another good fit with the team.

Last year the season got off to a bit of a late start because of the pandemic, but typically the season starts around June 1. This season, though, the season is expected to kick off on Friday, June 10, with the Whalers welcoming back the Shelter Island Bucks, who took last season off due to complications left over from the pandemic. First pitch is expected at 5 p.m. at Fiske Field.

For full rosters, game schedules, stats and more, go to hamptonsbaseball.org.