Harwich Wins 2026 Cape Cod Baseball League Championship

HARWICH – Like so many of their other wins this postseason, the one at Whitehouse Field on Tuesday night didn’t come entirely easy for Harwich.

Like those other wins, the Mariners found themselves against a nervy end-of-game situation — the opposition threatening with the tying runners on base, the winning run at the plate.

And just like those previous games, the Mariners got the outs they needed. In doing so Tuesday, locking down a 4-2 win in Game 3 of the Cape Cod Baseball League Championship against the Bourne Braves, they brought yet another title to Harwich.

“This is unbelievable,” first baseman Sean O’Leary (UMass Lowell) said. “Words can't even describe it. It is a dream come true, for me and for everybody on the team. Just nothing can beat this. This is a memory that's going to live with me and with these guys forever. Absolute dream come true.”

The Game 3 win clinched Harwich’s seventh Cape League title all-time (1933, 1983, 1987, 2008, 2011, 2024, 2026). It’s the fourth championship under manager Steve Englert.

“We had the chemistry, and they played their ass off all year, and it was a really good group of kids,” Englert said. “And I'm going to miss them. I really am.”

 The Mariners quickly took a lead in the final, championship-deciding contest of the 2026 Cape League season — the 47th game for both Harwich and Bourne — in front of a crowd numbering more than 7,000 people.

 After only scratching out three hits total in the previous night’s 1-0 win in Game 2 at Doran Park, the Mariners singled three times consecutively — punctuated by a Cade Kurland (Florida/transfer to Louisiana State) run-driving base hit — in their half of the first inning to get on the board.

 The Braves, making their sixth consecutive appearance in the championship series, responded in kind in the second, but the Mariners answered with another run in the third — after a Colin Larson (Boston College) double and a Ty Smolinski (Kansas State) base hit — to chase Braves starter Tyler Baird (Vanderbilt).

 Harwich starter Colin Lebel (George Washington/transfer to James Madison) went five innings, striking out two and surrendering just the one early run around five hits and two walks.

 Four straight singles in the sixth for the Mariners added two more — runs batted in by Tucker Stockman (Southern Mississippi) and Paul Jones II (Kansas State) — and the three arms from the Harwich bullpen — Christian Rodriguez (Florida/transfer to Florida International), Owen Wheeler (Maine) and Luke Morgan (Oregon) — combined for four innings of one-run ball.

Wheeler escaped bases loaded in the seventh and two on in the eighth. With two runners in scoring position in the top of the ninth, Morgan induced a pop-up to third baseman JP Peltier (Wright State/transfer to Kentucky), clinching the win and the championship.

“That's what it is end of season — the other team wants to win real bad,” O’Leary said. “They're going to be scrappy. They're going to fight. We’ve just got to hold our ground, and I think that's what we did. We held our ground. We believed we were going to get the job done the whole way through.” 

Peltier won the league’s postseason Most Valuable Player award after hitting .346 with two home runs, 12 walks and six runs batted in. The Mariners (21-19) finished third in the East, then swept the Brewster Whitecaps in the semifinals and the Yarmouth-Dennis Red Sox — the Cape’s top club in the regular season — in the division finals to reach the championship against Bourne, the defending league-winners.

Harwich dropped Game 1 of the championship 7-3 at home Sunday, with Bourne taking full advantage of 11 walks issued by the Mariners pitching staff. That unit rebounded immensely the next night with a three-hit shutout put forth by Bryan Matuschat (Sacred Heart), Reese Oakley (Murray State) and Tommy Mitchell (Elon).

Mitchell ended the game via a strikeout with two runners in scoring position.

“We get another day tomorrow at our place, so anything can happen,” Mitchell said Monday.

Anything can happen indeed. 

“Next week I'll be sitting on the beach, drinking a couple beers, and thinking back and reflecting on this whole summer,” Englert said.