Sag Harbor-Bridgehampton Little League Enters Three Teams Into District 36 Tournament

The Sag Harbor-Bridgehampton Little League, by far the smallest league competing in the District 36 Tournament, which ultimately leads to the Little League World Series in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, held its own against stiff competition.

Sag Harbor-Bridgehampton entered a pair of baseball teams, a 10-, 11- and 12-year-old Majors All-Stars team, and an 8-, 9- and 10-year-old Minors All-Stars team. And for the first time in quite some time, the league also entered a softball team in the 10-, 11- and 12-year-old Majors playoff bracket.

The Majors baseball All-Stars finished its five-game pool play, 2-3, with victories over Hampton Bays and North Shore American. They lost to East Hampton, Southampton and East End Little League.

This year’s Major All-Stars included Cole Baxter, Anthony Cappiello, Aidan D’Angelo, Ashton Greene, Eli Hinchen, Eli McCleland, Cameron Mitchell, Thomas Perri, Keegan Reilly, Tyce Russo, Zandar Schiavoni and Jaxson Schumann. The team was coached by Keith Schumann, Paul D’Angelo and Kerry Perri.

“I was really proud of the boys,” Coach Schumann said. “We have a pretty small program, if not the smallest out of all the six teams, so to win two games against Hampton Bays and North Shore, really proud of those guys. And they’re fairly young, we only had two sixth-graders, the rest are fifth-graders and one fourth-grader. Great effort.”

The younger Minors All-Stars were 1-2 as of Tuesday morning, with their final two games to be played on Wednesday against North Shore American in Rocky Point and then Thursday, July 7, against Riverhead at Stotzky Park. They would have needed to win both games in order to advance in the tournament. Additional information was not provided.

As earlier mentioned, Sag Harbor-Bridgehampton entered a softball team into this year’s tournament for the first time in recent memory. John Cottrell, who is the softball division head for the league, and who also managed a team during the regular season and the All-Star team, said that “after quite a few years of success with the Little League softball program and a steady increase in numbers, the entry of a softball tournament team seemed like the next best step.”

The girls got to play three games and defeated Southampton, which also returned to softball after a lengthy layoff, 17-4. This year’s team included Juliet Ambrose, Kacey Cottrell, Sadie Culver, Georgie Finelli, Layla Garypie, Margaret Greenwald, Josephine Mott, Lila Osborn, Sophia Perri, Sadie Schwartz, Kathleen Vinski, Addison Wayne and Molly Wolfson. John Cottrell managed the team along with assistants Sean Mott and Pete Finelli.

Cottrell also said that the league board, led by Beth Gregor, did a fantastic job this past season of reaching out to the school community early in the year and created and organized a welcoming program for both parents and players.

Cottrell also explained that the league had used a customized game format for its regular season games to maximize everyone’s playing time and keep the girls interested in playing. Cottrell likened the rules to that of the Middle School Section XI rules used throughout Suffolk County, which only allows three walks per inning, three steals per inning, three outs or batting around in the order will end the half-inning. It’s all helped to lead to increased numbers.

“Softball at Pierson Middle School was also strong this year with 16 kids on the team and they finished 6-5 overall, so the pipeline for Pierson softball is strong for the next several years,” Cottrell said.