Sag Harbor Whalers Ready To Defend Their First-Ever HCBL Title This Summer

The Sag Harbor Whalers, who won their first-ever league championship in their 14-year history last summer, are ready to campaign for their second title with the Hamptons Collegiate Baseball League season, which is set to begin this Friday. This season will pick up right where it left off at Mashashimuet Park in Sag Harbor, where the Whalers will host the Westhampton Aviators in a rematch of last year’s championship series.

As usual, the Whalers have some activities planned before their opening day. The Sag Harbor Elementary School choir will sing the national anthem and State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr., a Sag Harbor resident, will throw out the first pitch, which is expected at 5 p.m.

Sag Harbor will have a good mix of familiar faces along with some new ones who are bound to make their mark this summer. Returning for his third summer with the Whalers is Brett Borcherding, a right-handed pitcher from the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, who splits time between East Hampton and New York City. Borcherding closed out last year’s championship with two scoreless innings of relief. Also returning on the pitching front is Cole Forcellina, a right-handed pitcher from UConn-Avery Point.

Wyatt Benson (Orange Coast College) and Mike Maher (Wheaton College) are both returning position players for the Whalers. Benson is a middle infielder who can also throw some innings — manager Jacob Tobin loves his two-way players — and Maher can play both second and third base.

Tobin has his eyes on Vassar College sophomore outfielder Daniel Laderman, who is a member of the Israel National Team. This spring, Laderman batted .422 for Vassar, drove in 14 RBI and scored 15 runs.

Also joining the team this season is East Hampton High School graduate Tucker Genovesi, who originally attended High Point University in North Carolina out of high school but has since transferred to Paul D. Camp Community College in Franklin, Virginia.

Two of the more popular names to join the Whalers this season are women. Olivia Pichardo took the country by storm this spring when she became the first-ever female to play Division I baseball, doing so at Brown University. The Queens native will play the outfield and she’ll also pitch a little bit, Tobin said.

The second name of that pair is Bianca Smith, who will be co-managing the team this season with Tobin. According to the Boston Globe, Smith became the first Black woman hired as a coach by an MLB organization when she joined the Boston Red Sox as a minor league coach based at their extended spring training complex in Fort Myers, Florida, prior to the 2020 season. After an initial part-time position, she was promoted to a full-time role with the Florida Complex League Red Sox in Fort Myers in 2022. Smith’s contract with the Red Sox ran out after last season, at which time she reportedly declined a multiyear deal to continue coaching in Boston’s farm system.

Tobin said he can’t wait to get to know and work with Smith. He said he’ll handle the pitching side of things while Smith will handle the hitters.

“In talking to her on the phone, she’s just at a different level of baseball knowledge. She’s a baseball encyclopedia,” he said. “I’m so excited to be able to work with someone who has been a part of pro baseball, and when you read her story a bit more, she’s more than just a baseball coach. But I also hear she throws great batting practice.”

There are some changes overall for the league this season. For starters, the league was slimmed down from seven teams to six when the Riverhead Tomcats were dropped. As previously reported, having an even number of teams gives the league flexibility, mainly in scheduling, that it hasn’t had in recent years. All six teams will now have common days off, which will allow for easily scheduled make-up dates for rainouts.

While the number of games hasn’t changed, the league schedule has been reduced from eight to six weeks, mainly for housing reasons, league president Sandi Kruel said. Housing is a league-wide issue year in and year out and the league is trying something new to see if reducing the schedule will help. Tobin said he totally gets it, but it could affect things, especially pitching, since the same number of games are being played in two less weeks.

“You always pay attention to pitching, but you’re going to have to way more this year,” he said. “It’s a lot of watching arms, making sure everyone’s healthy and good to go. For the hitters, it’s not much different, if anything it may help them out. But pitching is going to be the big thing here to watch out for.”