SPORTS

Bravehearts, Sharks share FCBL title

Rain washes out Game 3, so Worcester, Martha's Vineyard declared co-champions

Dave Nordman
david.nordman@telegram.com
The Bravehearts hoist high the 2018 Futures Collegiate Baseball League championship trophy, Worcester's third in its five-year existence. [T&G Staff/Dave Nordman]

OAK BLUFFS — For the first time since 2015, the Worcester Bravehearts are champions of the Futures Collegiate Baseball League.

But for the first time in league history, they will have to share the title with another team.

After rain washed out Game 3 of the FCBL Championship series at Vineyard Ballpark on Monday night, league commissioner Chris Hall declared the Bravehearts and Martha’s Vineyard Sharks co-champions.

The score was tied, 1-1, in the bottom of the first inning when the skies opened up. And soon the field was under water.

“They did everything they could to get the field ready,” Hall said. “It’s been a long season. These kids have played a lot of baseball, and they’re ready to go home. It was the right thing to do.”

Indeed, Hall was up against the weather and the calendar. The best-of-three series already had been delayed a day and many players’ flights home already had been booked. Postponing the game until Tuesday was not an option.

“We allow a week for our playoffs,” Hall said. “It’s unfortunate, but we just ran out of time.”

Bravehearts manager J.P. Pyne understood the decision.

“It was made with the safety of the players in mind,” he said. “A lot of these guys are scholarship players and have bright futures in professional baseball.”

Worcester defeated Martha’s Vineyard, 10-6, here on Friday before the Sharks rebounded for a 4-2 at Hanover Insurance Park on Sunday.

The teams finished first and second during the regular season, with Martha’s Vineyard earning the top seed in the playoffs with a strong stretch run.

The Sharks defeated the Brockton Rox, while the Bravehearts beat the Bristol Blues in their semifinal series.

“Nobody knows exactly how to feel (about being co-champions),” Pyne said. “But I think you need to reflect on the whole season, not one game. These two teams will be linked as long as people talk about the Futures League. They were the No. 1 seed. We were the No. 2 seed. We were the best two teams all season, and it’s probably fitting that it ended this way.”

The rain actually caused the Bravehearts’ second delay of the day. The team’s bus broke down before it even left Holy Cross. It was an ominous sign of things to come, according to Worcester catcher and team championship series MVP Brett Coffel.

“I had a feeling this was going to happen,” said Coffel, who was 5 for 8 with a home run in the first two games of the finals and was 1 for 1 Monday night. “I mean, really, how many times does your bus break down before you even leave campus.”

Still, Coffel, who batted .368 for the postseason and will return to St. Leo University in Florida, was glad to end the long summer as a champion.

“It’s great to go out on top,” he said. “I wouldn’t want to win it with any other team. And I think we would have beaten them on the field if we finished the game.”

The Bravehearts won FCBL titles in their first two seasons, defeating the Sharks in 2014 and the Blues in 2015. Worcester lost the next two championship series to the Nashua Silver Knights.

Both teams scored a run in the first inning Monday before the game was stopped and eventually canceled.

Dustin Harris’ slicing line drive to left-center drove in Mariano Ricciardi with Worcester’s run in the top of the inning. Ricciardi led off the game with a seven-pitch walk.

The Bravehearts’ lead didn’t last long, however, as Matt Chamberlain led off the bottom of the first with a long home run over the fence in right off Worcester starter Jared Freilich.

Chance Huff was the Sharks’ pitcher. He allowed two hits in the first — Coffel also singled up the middle — but stranded runners on second and third when he struck out Kirk Sidwell swinging to end the inning.

—Contact Dave Nordman at david.nordman@telegram.com. Follow him on Twitter @DaveNordman.