Defending Champ Mariners Get Opening Day Win In Playoff Rematch

HARWICH – After taking down the Bourne Braves last August, the Harwich Mariners entered summer 2025 as the defending champions of the Cape Cod Baseball League. Just don’t tell manager Steve Englert that. 

The longtime Mariners head gets a kick out of the idea of being the defending champs. It’s a whole new team in a whole new year from the 2024 season, he said. And in the inherently transient, impermanent Cape League, he’s got a point. 

“We have 30 guys on the team — 29 couldn’t tell you who won last year,” Englert said.

The Mariners began that whole new year with a whole new team last Saturday in a 7-5 win over the Bourne Braves at Whitehouse Field — an opening day rematch of last year’s championship series.

A six-spot in the bottom of the first off two hits, two walks, two hit-by-pitches, two throwing errors and a wild pitch was all the scoring Harwich needed to hang on against Bourne, who outhit the Mariners 10-5. 

South Carolina lefthander Jake McCoy had the start for the Mariners, allowing one unearned run on three hits, no walks and 10 strikeouts in four innings. Ryan Bilka, a righthander from Richmond, recorded the win.

“I love to get the win,” Richmond third baseman Jordan Jaffe said. “First game out, opening day, whole new season, whole new slate of at-bats on the way, and it was just cool for the team to just go out and get the win.”

Houston centerfielder Tre Broussard started the Harwich offense with a leadoff double. He also was hit by a pitch and stole a base in the seventh inning and scored two runs on the day.

“If getting a little banged up to help the team is what I’ve got to do, that’s what I’m going to do,” he said.

The scoring was spread out for the Mariners, as Virginia shortstop Eric Becker, Wake Forest catcher Matt Conte, Florida Gulf Coast two-way player Evan Dempsey, Princeton second baseman Jake Koonin and Jaffe each recorded an RBI.

“When you put a lot of good baseball players together, you’re bound to mesh and feed off of each other and create some good energy,” Broussard said.

A jumping grab by Jaffe on a line drive from Braves center fielder Jon LeGrande took a run away from Bourne in the fourth inning — and the cap off Jaffe’s head in the process.

“Plays like that definitely swing the momentum a little bit so early in the game, just making that play and having the team kind of feed off that was big,” he said.

Kansas State lefthander Adam Arther threw an inning and a third and Hayden Simmerson, a right hander from Division II Catawba, recorded the save in an inning and two-thirds.  

The Mariners followed up opening day with a 4-1 loss at Hyannis and a 6-0 win at Falmouth.

“Good group so far,” Englert said. “Good group of kids, and that’s all you ask.”