Mariners’ Championship Another Win For The Local Guys

HARWICH – Because of the relationships and contacts inherent to building out a summer ball team, the various clubs that together make the Cape League take on themes.

The Orleans Firebirds, on account of manager Kelly Nicholson’s California heritage, typically have many players from the West Coast. Chatham manager Dennis Cook attended the University of Texas, and the past two years, the Anglers have indeed rostered several SEC players.

Harwich manager Steve Englert is from Boston, and his Mariners, season after season, go heavy on New England players. That was no different in 2026.

So when Harwich won the Cape Cod Baseball League championship on Aug. 11 for their second title in three years, after defeating the Bourne Braves in Game 3 4-2 at Whitehouse Field, it felt like yet another win for the local nine. 

On their championship series roster, the Mariners had 12 players (of 30 total) who either hailed from a New England town or played at a school in the region (or both).

“It means a little bit more,” said pitcher Jason Finkelstein (Babson), who’s from Walpole. “I came to a few games when I was little, so I mean, coming down here for summers and just my family watching these games and being able to come down and play for a championship, playing for the Cape just means so much to me. And I wouldn't want it any other way.”

Finkelstein started Game 1 (which Harwich lost 7-3) against the Braves, pitching four innings and striking out six on two runs (both unearned). Left-hander Cam Keaveney, an Exeter, New Hampshire native (Northeastern/Southern New Hampshire), took the ninth inning.

In Game 2, Bryan Matuschat (Sacred Heart, which is in Fairfield, Connecticut) pitched six and two-thirds scoreless innings. Tommy Mitchell (Elon), a southpaw from East Milton, closed the 1-0 shutout.

In Game 3, right-handed pitcher Owen Wheeler (Maine) crucially finished the seventh and eighth innings as the Mariners clung to a 4-2 lead on the way to the championship win.

And throughout the entire postseason, Massachusetts-area players Niko Brini (Wofford/Vanderbilt), who’s from Plymouth; Colin Larson (Boston College), who’s from Easthampton; and Sean O’Leary (UMass Lowell), who’s from Foxborough; filled the front end of the Mariners’ lineup.

“I grew up coming to these games, and it was an absolute dream come true because I know what it takes to be in the Cape League,” O’Leary said. “I know how hard individuals have to work to get down here.”

Harwich had plenty of other New England guys throughout the year who played earlier in the summer but weren’t here for the postseason. Rounding out the playoff roster for the local group were pitchers Thomas Martin (Maine), Rex Hauser (Maine), Andrew Basel (Northeastern) and Ben Alekson (Fairfield), who’s from Stowe, Vt., as well as infielder Charlie Criscola (Northeastern), who’s from Uxbridge.

This isn’t anything new for the Mariners under Englert, the Harwich club’s skipper since 2003, who was born in Roslindale, attended Catholic Memorial and graduated from Boston College in 1987. Among other stops, Englert has served on coaching staffs at his alma mater, Northeastern and Holy Cross. 

When the Mariners last won a Cape League title in 2024, six players on the championship roster were from Massachusetts, while nine went to schools in the state.

“He keeps bringing us back because he likes the way a lot of the New England guys play with a chip on their shoulder,” Larson said. “And we'll play small ball. We'll do whatever to win, so I think he likes that, and, I mean, it got us here.”

Of course, while the Mariners usually have several players with New England ties in the lineup, that certainly doesn’t mean guys from the region don’t get added to other Cape League rosters. Harwich’s opponent in the championship, the Bourne Braves, had five players from a New England town and/or attending an area school. But Harwich seems to often have the most of that crop. And they win with them, too.

Also, the Mariners can say they had the ultimate local this year in Harwich native Brady Miller (Boston College). A left-handed pitcher, Miller appeared in three games for Harwich, then hit an innings limit and was shut down in July. 

After a couple weeks off, Miller rejoined the team during the postseason run — not as a pitcher on the roster but just as someone to support his team in the dugout and bullpen.

“It was great to come back and be able to see the guys that I was with in the beginning of the summer come and pitch,” he said.

When the Mariners gathered at the pitcher’s mound of Whitehouse Field after clinching the championship last week, Miller found himself once again on a baseball diamond he had played at long before.

“I played at this field and played all the local fields, and it's really cool to kind of see this happen and kind of still be at this place so many years later,” Miller said.

But that’s just the picture-perfect, full-circle hometown story that’s bound to happen with the local Harwich Mariners.