Hamptons Collegiate Baseball League
Axcess Baseball and Hamptons Collegiate Baseball League Extend Partnership
We are pleased to announce that we will be continuing our partnership with the Hamptons Collegiate Baseball League through the 2020 season. The agreement began in 2018 and has been received very well from our audience. It has included game coverage during the regular season, All-Star Game, Home Run Derby, Scout Day and Championship Series including real-time updates, postgame interviews, playoff previews and game recaps. The Hamptons Collegiate Baseball League is a summer baseball organization located in The Hamptons. It begins in the first week of June and continues through July. Teams play a 35-game schedule. There are seven teams; Long Island Road Warriors, Southampton Breakers, Sag Harbor Whalers, Shelter Island Bucks, Westhampton Aviators, Riverhead Tomcats and North Fork Ospreys. Pla...
Westhampton Aviators Win the 2019 Hamptons League Championship With 7-3 Win Over Riverhead
For the fourth time in franchise history, the Westhampton Aviators are Hamptons League Champions. The 2019 championship adds to their collection of titles form 2009, 2011, and 2016. The Aviators swept through the postseason going 4-0. They ended the season on a 9-0 run, winning 12 of their last 14 games. Westhampton defeated the Riverhead Tomcats in game 1 on Monday, putting themselves in position to clinch the title on the road. The Tomcats sent NYIT’s Bobby Vath to the mound in an attempt to force a decisive game three. Vath was the Hamptons League regular season leader in strikeouts and ERA, as he put together one of the most dominant resumes in the league. Vath worked through a leadoff single from Dan Franchi (Binghamton) and got three groundball outs to end the top of the first inning...
Westhampton Aviators take game 1 of the HCBL Championship Series over Riverhead, 10-4
by Chris Sacchi Two teams throughout the Hamptons League season sparred back and forth all season for the top spot. The Riverhead Tomcats and Westhampton Aviators both won 27 regular season games, besting their franchise marks. Their dominance over the league can be punctuated by this fact; no other team in the 7-squad league finished above .500. It was no surprise, then, that these two forces would meet in a three game series to determine the league champion. Due to a 4-2 head to head record, the Aviators received the top seed and thus enjoyed home field in games one and three, if needed. They swept the Southampton Breakers two games to none in round one. Riverhead was taken to a decisive game three against Sag Harbor before scoring key runs in the bottom of the eighth to move ...
Riverhead Advances to HCBL Championship Series
by Chris Sacchi In a win or go home game three of a first round playoff series between the Riverhead Tomcats hosting the Sag Harbor Whalers, it truly came down to the wire in an exciting 6-4 victory for Riverhead, moving on to face the Westhampton Aviators in the championship series. After a scoreless top half for Tomcats starters Nick Desalvo, his team jumped out to an early 2-0 lead in the bottom of the first, thanks to production from some of the best hitters in the entire Hamptons League. Robert Gallagher hit .319 and set his own record for stolen bases in a Tomcats season with 38. Jason Coules set the Tomcats record for triples and was the only Hamptons Leaguer to bat over .400 this season. Coules was the one who got it starter for Riverhead with a walk against Whalers southpaw start...
Westhampton Aviators Advance to HCBL Championship Series
By Chris Sacchi Game two of a three game opening round playoff series between the Southampton Breakers hosting the Westhampton Aviators was delayed 55 minutes from its 4:30 start, due to umpires that were preoccupied at another game at Baseball Heaven. After two innings, the game was an absolute slugfest with a score of 7-7, with those two innings taking almost an hour. Westhampton proceeded to score 10 more runs, while Southampton stayed quiet in a 17-7 loss that eliminated them from the postseason. In the top of the of the first, Dan Franchi, who holds the all time record for hits in a season and hits across a career for the Aviators, fittingly led off with a single. Teammate Eric Callahan followed with another single into right, and Franchi sped over to third. With runners at the cor...
Southampton Takes Wild Card Match Up Over Shelter Island
by Chris Sacchi Just like in Major League Baseball, Wednesday’s Hamptons League wild card match up between the Southampton Breakers and the host Shelter Island Bucks was win or go home. A seasons worth of friendships, camaraderie, and memories were on the line for both squads and a back and forth contest went the way of the Breakers in a 7-4 win. A pair of lefty took the starting nod for each team, and kept it scoreless through two innings. Trevor Olson took the ball for the Bucks, an unconventional pitcher who led his team with a sub 3.00 ERA. Olson isn’t like the usual young prospects of today’s game; he doesn’t light up the radar gun with a max-effort fastball. Instead, he relies on a sidearm delivery, off many speech pitches, and superb command. Olson was cruising through two innings ...
Sag Harbor Whalers Win 11-7 over Southampton
by Chris Sacchi With their playoff spot already clinched heading into the Sag Harbor Whalers’ matchup in Southampton against the Breakers, manager James Pereira decided to switch things up. Peter Marren, in his first action on the bump since high school, started for Sag Harbor. The usual infielder walked three batters and plunked one in two innings, but allowed only one run thanks to two double plays, a 6-3 initiated by shortstop Brock Franks, and a 5-4-3 started by third baseman Pete Giombetti. Next in for the Whalers on the mound was Johnny Lopez, who led off in the batting order and started in left field. Lopez hit the first batter he faced but also struck out one. During an at-bat against Justice Thompson with a 3-1 count and two out, Lopez motioned for his manager Pereira and removed ...
Westhampton Win 6-2 in Heat-Shortened Game
by Chris Sacchi Despite a weekend with some of the hottest temperatures since 2003, every team in the Hamptons League can’t afford to lose intensity with the playoffs starting on Wednesday and seeding still to be determined. In a chase for the number one seed, the Westhampton Aviators took down the Southampton Breakers 6-2 in a heat shortened game through 5 and a half innings. Aviators southpaw starter Ryan Smith was taken out in the first inning, but not due to ineffectiveness. After getting the first two outs, Breakers first baseman Gerard Sweeney hit a bullet up the middle that ricocheted off Smith’s right leg. Smith looked fine initially, breaking towards the ball that was rolling towards third base, and making a throw to first that Sweeny beat out. Smith then paced around the mound...
Westhampton Bats Explode for 17 Runs
The Westhampton Aviators bats came alive on Friday night as they scored 17 runs on 16 hits, defeating the Shelter Island Bucks 17-7 in eight innings. With the victory, and Riverhead’s loss tonight, the Aviators, now 24-11-2, are just one game behind Riverhead for the first seed in the Hamptons League playoffs, beginning next Wednesday. Florida Southern’s Reed Burke got the start for the Aviators. He threw four and a third innings, giving up two runs, one earned on three hits. Burke retired the first eleven batters he faced. Westhampton took advantage of a Shelter Island error in the outfield too score three unearned runs in the bottom of the first inning off of Shelter Island starter Trevor Olson (Xavier). The third run came off of a John Tuccillo (Stony Brook) rbi single. Westhampton L...
Vath Ties Nick Tropeano for Single Game Strikeout Record
By Chris Sacchi Riverhead’s Bobby Vath entered play on Monday against the North Fork Ospreys trying to replicate a historic performance; he had a no-hitter in his last start. The last pitcher in the MLB to throw back to back no hitters was Johnny Vander Meer in 1938, with the second game coming in the first ever night game at Ebbets Field. While Vath couldn’t do what Vander Meer did, he was able to match a current major league player. With 13 strikeouts over six innings, Vath tied the Tomcats record for strikeouts in a game, set twice by Nick Tropeano in 2009. Tropeano now pitches out of the Los Angeles Angels bullpen. “It feels pretty good,” Vath said postgame, as seen on the AxcessBaseball twitter. Given a chance to go back out for the seventh inning, Vath might have been able to break t...
Riverhead Tomcats Take Game 1, Tie in Game 2 over LI Road Warriors
The Riverhead Tomcats came away with a win and a tie in Sunday’s doubleheader against the Long Island Road Warriors in two seven inning games. With seven games remaining for both teams in the 2019 HCBL season, the Tomcats are 23-8-2 in first place, and the Road Warriors are 10-21-2 in seventh. GAME 1 Riverhead defeated Long Island 7-6 in game one, on the road at Bellport High School. Long Island’s Anthony Jacabacci of the University of Bridgeport got the start on the mound and fired three innings, giving up five runs on three hits with four walks. Jacabacci gave up a leadoff single to UMass Lowell’s Rob Gallagher, who then stole second. Jacabacci walked the next two batters and with the bases loaded and nobody out, Penn catcher Andrew Hernandez grounded into a 4-6-3 double play, scoring ...
Riverhead Scores Eight Runs in the Early Innings to Defeat Shelter Island
by Chris Sacchi Just one day away from the Hamptons League All Star Game, a pair of teams sending several players took the Ferry into Shelter Island for Friday afternoon baseball. The Riverhead Tomcats will be well represented with eight all stars, while the Shelter Island Bucks will send nine players. Going into the game, Riverhead stood at first place in the HCBL at 22-8, while the Bucks were at third with a 17-15 record. Despite having more all stars, it was the Tomcats who came out with a 8-5 victory over Shelter Island to extend their win streak to six. Riverhead scores first, as Jason Coules, an all star entering the game with a .403 average, singled and stole second. He scored on a Bryce Willits RBI single, another all star. Shelter Island tied it up in the home first after Jus...
