Southampton Breakers Sweep HCBL Postseason Awards

A clean sweep.

For the first time ever in the 17-year history of the Hamptons Collegiate Baseball League, the Southampton Breakers took home all three major postseason awards. Collin Quintano (Villanova) was named the league’s Most Valuable Player on August 6, Giacomo Travaglia (Fordham) earned Reliever of the Year honors on August 13 and Drew Sliwkowski (UMass) completed the trifecta when he was named Pitcher of the Year the following day.

Southampton manager Rob Cafiero said that he and his players would have liked to have won back-to-back HCBL Championships after winning it all last season; the Breakers lost to the eventual champion South Shore Clippers in the semifinals of this year’s playoffs. But sweeping the individual awards is certainly a nice accomplishment, he said.

“We had a tough end to the season where two of our top pitchers ended up getting hurt, so we were limited with what I can do with our pitchers. You always want to protect yourself against the next series or game. You can’t throw everybody that you want. And then we ran into a buzz saw in the Clippers, who just got hot at the right time. That’s kind of what happened with us last year. We got hot at the right time whereas we cooled off at the end this year, which is never good.”

“We played really well during the season and obviously those three guys were certainly a big part of us finishing in second place during the regular season,” Cafiero added. “I’m very proud of those three guys and our coaching staff. Chris and John Clark, John being the pitching coach, worked with those guys a lot and I give him a lot of credit for what he did with the pitchers.”

Quintano earned MVP honors in this year’s All-Star Game after going 1 for 2 with a pair of RBIs and a run scored, with his go-ahead double in the fifth inning putting the HCBL ahead of the Atlantic Collegiate Baseball League All-Stars. He said after that game that prior to the season he had put together a vision board in which he had multiple goals to accomplish this summer. One of them was to be MVP of the league.

In his second summer in Southampton, the rising senior from Villanova who calls Easton, Pennsylvania, home hit .382 for the Breakers, leading the league in home runs (9) and RBIs (37). Quintano reset the Breakers all-time career home run record (12) and tied the franchise career RBI record (65). He is the first Southampton Breaker since Will Gale (Seton Hall, 2021) to be named HCBL MVP.

Quintano beat out a pair of North Fork Ospreys in Nick Pratt (UMBC) and Thomas Masuszewski (Jefferson) for the award, respectively.

“I have to give credit to my teammates and to coach Rob Cafiero,” he said. “Rob gave me a good opportunity to come in and play loose, free and easy, and I have to say he was a main contributor to my success. He’s a Villanova guy like me and obviously a great baseball guy. I learned so much from him, doing the extra work before games in batting practice, so again, he was a big contributor to my success.”

Quintano said the big difference for him this summer was pitch recognition. Previously, he had a hard time picking up the spin of pitches in the box, particularly offspeed pitches, but that aforementioned extra work with Cafiero honed in on that issue.

“Collin played for me the summer before and had a pretty good summer. I was excited to have him come back this year,” Cafiero said. “I worked with him a lot with his approach at the plate. He improved with his season at school and came back out here swinging the bat well. It’s nice to see him win the MVP.”

Quintano mashed opposing pitchers all the while playing left field, which was a new position for him.

“I had never played outfield going into this season, but I felt pretty comfortable out there. And I told Rob right before the season started, you can put me anywhere,” he said. “I think that comes with a lot of confidence and what contributed to my hot start. I think baseball is a very mental game, and if you’re not confident in your abilities you’re going to struggle.

“A few of us hit with Rob once or twice a week. With his knowledge, he is one of the best coaches I’ve ever played for,” Quintano continued. “His approach to hitting is so different than so many other coaches. He goes so in depth with his players, and it was such a big factor in my success.”

Sliwkowski, out of Kennebunkport, Maine, went 5-0 for Southampton in six appearances, finishing with a sparkling ERA of 0.78, leading the HCBL in that category. He also struck out 29 batters in 23 innings pitched. His strongest effort was July 13 against the Westhampton Aviators when he tossed five shutout innings, allowing one hit while striking out six.

Sliwkowski continues what is a storied tradition as he’s the eighth Breaker to win Pitcher of the Year honors since 2010. He joins Mike Mandarino (Broward, 2010), Chris Phelan (Farmingdale State, 2011), Paul Paez (Rio Hondo JC, 2012), Tim Ingram (SUNY Old Westbury, 2014), Evan Tubbs (St. Edwards, 2017), Carson Seymour (Dartmouth, 2018) and John Kwiatkowski (Manhattan, 2023).

“I can only thank Caf, J.C. and Chris, the entire coaching staff, they were all awesome and really prepared us for the games,” Sliwkowski said. “Everyone involved with the team, from [general manager Sara Mannino Kent] and everyone in that group, they did a great job of taking care of us. Everyone in the Breakers organization played a significant role.”

After the HCBL season was over, Sliwkowski got to pitch in one game for the Norwich Sea Unicorns of the Futures League who eventually won that league’s championship this past weekend. He said the competition in the HCBL is right there with any other league.

“Honestly, going into it I didn’t know too much about the Hamptons League, but the competition was really good,” he said. “There were a lot of different guys from a lot of different levels, from DI, DII and DIII to really good JUCO players. But outside of that, I made some friends that I’ll have for the rest of my life and making those connections is pretty awesome.”

Cafiero said having a bona fide No. 1 pitcher who he could depend on to win games in Sliwkowski was certainly nice to have this season.

“All summer he threw really well,” he said. “There aren’t too many lefties with high velocity moving the ball and throwing three pitches for strikes. He just dominated all summer. I don’t know how many runs he gave up during the year but it wasn’t many.”

A resident of Glen Head, Travaglia appeared in eight games for the Breakers during the season and went 1-0 with a pair of saves and a 1.63 ERA. The rising junior at Fordham wasn’t the typical reliever for the Breakers that piled saves upon saves. Instead he was more of a “long man” out of the bullpen, evident in his strikeout numbers, where he whiffed 21 batters in 22 innings pitched.

Travaglia’s strongest performance on the mound was in his first appearance of the season on June 17 when he entered the game in a 4-4 tie against the Sag Harbor Whalers and went four innings, striking out five batters while allowing only an unearned run on one hit.

Travaglia is the third Southampton Breaker to be named HCBL Reliever of the Year. Anthony Pisani (Rhode Island) was the first to win the award in 2009, then Jacob Pedersen (Adelphi) won it in 2023.

Cafiero said one of the most impressive things about Travaglia is that he hasn’t played on the Fordham varsity team in two years.

“He came in and just said he wanted to get a lot of innings, and from the first time he went into a game for us until the end of the season, he threw the ball great,” he said. “This will give him some great confidence going into the fall ball season at Fordham where he can hopefully make the roster.”

Travaglia said he wasn’t much of a reliever prior to this summer, but he “fell into a groove every game.”

“The coaching staff would always let me know the days I was expected to go in so I was able to work around that, get into a game and work on my craft,” he said. “This summer was kind of an eye opener in a sense because I definitely have more confidence now as a long reliever. After going three, four innings, I’d get into a rhythm and start to control the game.”

Travaglia said he’s already been contacted by one of the coaches at Fordham who foresees him landing a similar role there as long as fall ball and the early spring go well. He thanked Cafiero and the entire coaching staff for all of their help.

“Coach Rob was very good coach,” he said. “He let the guys play. He controlled what he could control but also let us control what we wanted to control. It’s also a very competitive and tough league. Every team was there to win and everyone was just trying to get better. We all got our reps and fortunately for me I played at a higher level than I thought I would and it definitely made my summer a lot more enjoyable.”