Southampton Breakers Sweep Riverhead Tomcats For First HCBL Title In Seven Years

There’s really only one word that describes a team that leads from start to finish and wins a championship on top of it: dominant.

That’s what the Southampton Breakers were this summer, sitting on top of what was a shortened regular season of the Hamptons Collegiate Baseball League, then sweeping the Sag Harbor Whalers in the semifinal series before sweeping the Riverhead Tomcats in a best-of-three series last week to claim their first league title since 2014.

Southampton defeated Riverhead, 9-1, in game one of the series on July 28 at Southampton High School, then defeated the Tomcats on their home field at Veterans Memorial Park in Calverton, 6-0, two days later on Friday, July 30.

Southampton Breakers manager Rob Cafiero, who has been a part of all of the club’s championships, knew he had a good team coming into the summer and it was nice to see that come through on the field, he said.

“They put in the hard work all summer. They’ve been doing real well since day one. They played hard every game and they played hard until the last out today, too.

“And the good thing about us is that we stayed healthy throughout the whole year,” Cafiero added. “We only lost one or two guys to injuries throughout the summer. A lot of these teams they’ve had a lot of injuries, so we lucked out that way, but like I said, this group stayed together, they gelled as a team and I enjoyed coming to coach them every day and I think they enjoyed coming to play every day.”

The Breakers held a 9-0 lead after six innings in game one of the series, which was more than enough for starting pitcher Bryan Krolikowski (Nassau CC), who pitched eight strong innings, allowing just four hits and no walks with seven strikeouts. Nearly every player in the lineup had a hit — Will Gale (Seton Hall), Mason Marquez (Abilene Christian) and David Franchi (Molloy/Center Moriches) had two hits apiece — and that set a good tone for Southampton going into game two.

Southampton only held a tight 2-0 lead for much of game two, but again, it was enough for starting pitcher Rob Lucano (Molloy), who also pitched eight strong innings, allowing six hits but no walks while striking out six. The offense came through with four insurance runs in the top of the ninth, which really put things out of reach for Riverhead.

Gale had another two-hit, two-RBI performance at the plate, and along with steady defense in center field all series, he was named Most Valuable Player of the HCBL Championship series.

“We’re all pumped,” he said after winning the title. “I think this is the first time since 2014, but we were just playing baseball, having fun, no pressure.”

Gale, along with Michael Ciminiello (Seton Hall) and Matt Jachec (Indiana State), are headed to the Cape Cod League to even further showcase their talents, something a handful of HCBL players get to do after the season wraps up. Gale said he’s excited to continue to play ball and Cafiero said he wouldn’t be surprised if Gale winds up being named overall MVP of the season.

“He should be MVP of the league,” he said. “He’s a difference maker when he gets on the bases, and at the plate he’s been doing great for us all year, and especially in center field, I’ve never seen a center fielder in the Hamptons that I’ve coached that covers so much ground out there. He’s a special player.”

Cafiero had a couple of options of who to put on the mound for game two, but ultimately it was familiarity that led him to go with Lucano, who was playing in his second year with the Breakers and helped pitch the team into the playoffs in 2019.

Lucano said he wanted to come up big for not only the Breakers but the Southampton community.

“Been a Breaker for a couple years now so it was great giving a championship to this town,” he said. “[Catcher Andrew Primm] called a great game. In the fourth inning, Parker [Stinson] made an amazing play, and then obviously with his home run he payed great. Everyone behind me played really well. A couple of double plays there. When I was in jams they had my back and it was just a lot of fun.

“Cafs the man,” Lucano continued about his manager. “It’s a lot of fun playing for him, such a great environment he brings to the team. We have a real tight-knit group here, so we knew we were going to do it from the beginning. It was a lot of fun.”

Neil Crawford led the Breakers front office this season and said it was a nice season despite it being shortened due to COVID. It’s the first championship Crawford is involved with since he joined the club in 2018.

“Like everything else, the league was heavily impacted by COVID, and it wasn’t clear if there was going to be a season, but thanks to [HCBL President Sandi Kruel] we were able to get a season in, although we started in mid-June where we usually start at the beginning of June,” he explained. “This was a great group of players, though. The team really wanted it and they felt like they had a good team to make some noise and win. It went so fast but they really put together some quality baseball.”

Kruel said it was nice to see Cafiero and his two coaches, John and Chris Clark, back on top.

“If you want to look at the epitome of what coaches do — just relax, it’s summer ball, play a game, if we win that’s great, if we don’t that’s okay, too — and that’s how Caf runs his team,” she said. “They’ve been on top since day one. They were just an incredible team. They came together really well. They played hard. Probably the fastest team I’ve ever seen in this league in our history. Their outfielders were probably hands down the best in the league, and if someone got on first they were probably stealing second and third, they were that fast.”

Kruel added that things are looking good for next summer. The Shelter Island Bucks are expected to return after having to sit out this season and prospective players are already showing interest. HCBL Commissioner Jim Pereira gave a lot of credit to Kruel for getting this season in against all odds coming off a canceled season due to COVID.

“Considering with what we dealt with from day one, if it wasn’t for her we wouldn’t be here right now,” he said. “She worked her butt off to get it going. She was diligent because people were ready to bail. She made it happen single handedly, she’s amazing.

“It was a really, really good year. We can improve, we can always improve, and that’s what I’ll strive to do,” Pereira added. “I told [Kruel] my goal is to make this an elite league. It’s not that far off, just needs some tweaking, buying in from franchises, and we’ll do fine here.”