Athlete of the Week: Dawson Bryce

ORLEANS – Over the course of the seven consecutive wins put together by the Orleans Firebirds in the last week of the season, the bat of Dawson Bryce was to thank for three huge hits that kept the streak going.

First, he hit an eighth inning RBI-single last Tuesday to put the Firebirds up 2-0 against the Harwich Mariners in a game they’d hang on to win 2-1.

Then there was his home run last Thursday against the Cotuit Kettleers, a ball Bryce hooked over the left field fence at Eldredge Park with the Firebirds looking to win their fifth straight. The solo shot ended up being the only run in a 1-0 win.

Two nights later, Bryce came up with runners on in the bottom of the 10th as Orleans sought their seventh win in a row, on the precipice of completing a comeback in the late innings against the Hyannis Harbor Hawks. With the game tied 6-6, Bryce’s two-out tailing rope into center-right chased in the winning run to walk it off for Orleans and keep them streaking. 

“I was just trying to get my barrel to anything over the plate,” he said.

A Taunton native from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Bryce has been a Firebird since day one of the season, appearing in 31 games at either first base, third or designated hitter. The wins against Harwich, Cotuit and Hyannis, secured by Bryce’s RBIs, were part of five consecutive one-run wins for the Firebirds within their seven-game overall victory streak. Every other night, it seemed, Bryce was knocking in the game-winning run in some way.

“It just shows that every at-bat during the game matters, and we know that if we can just keep putting up good at-bats, we can trust ourselves in any game,” Bryce said.

That string of games across the last week of the regular season took Orleans from fourth place to first in the East Division. At 22-16-2, they finished with the most points of all Cape Cod Baseball League teams entering the postseason. And that 2-1 win against Harwich proved to be ever-important, as the Firebirds finished a win above them in the standings. 

“I knew we were talented, and we knew that once everything came together, we were going to be really good,” Bryce said.