This past week was a big one for Will Darrell, a former East Hampton High School baseball pitcher who was Vassar’s number-one starter during the college season and is now in his second year playing summer ball with the Sag Harbor Whalers.
Will Tucker, the Whalers’ manager, said before Sunday’s doubleheader with the Southampton Breakers began at Mashashimuet Park that Darrell’s three-run home run (the first in his collegiate career, and with a borrowed bat) had staked the Whalers to the lead in a game they went on to win 6-5 over the Westhampton Aviators last Thursday. To boot, the hard-throwing left-hander was the winner of Sunday’s opener — a game that the Whalers won 4-3 in eight innings — having come on in relief of Donovan Gevers, the starter, with the score tied 3-3 in the sixth.
Trevor Darrell, Will’s father, who was among the spectators, said his son, a junior psychology and political science major, was a two-way player at Vassar too. With the Whalers he’s been D.H.-ing and playing at first base as well as pitching, mostly in relief. “His college coach doesn’t want him throwing five or six innings,” said the elder Darrell, an East Hampton lawyer who, when asked about his son’s academic plans, said it seemed he was aiming for law school, “though I’ve tried to talk him out of it.”
“They’re a good group,” said Tucker, a Lynbrook native who also coaches Hillsborough Community College’s baseball team near Tampa. That his players were living with host families in the Harbor was a good thing, he added, when this writer said he’d recently seen housing-needed signs on Shelter Island for Bucks players. “Our guys are role models for the kids. At times, when they might not listen to their parents, they’ll listen to them.”
As of Monday, the Hamptons Collegiate Baseball League was led by the North Fork Ospreys (10-5-1), followed by the Breakers (8-6-2), the Bucks (7-8-0), the Aviators (7-9-0), the Whalers (6-6-3), and the South Shore Clippers (5-9-0).
The Whalers’ sixth game, an 11-0 win over the Bucks, was played on June 19 at the Montauk School, where the team used to play (housing problems having caused the Mustangs’ removal to Sag Harbor). And the game was a memorable one, inasmuch as the Whalers’ starter, Trey Zaffiro (Lafayette), pitched a no-hitter, the fourth in Whaler history, and the 10th in the league’s.
Whaler pitchers combined for yet another no-hitter on Friday, defeating the Aviators 4-0 behind Everett Garber (Bucknell), the starter, who went five innings, Declan Semler (Stetson), and Ethan Righter (Hamilton), who shut down the Aviators in the final two frames.
The Whalers are to play the Bucks today on Shelter Island’s Fiske Field at 5. Tomorrow, at 11 a.m., they are to play the Bucks at Mashashimuet. They will be home against the Aviators on Saturday at 5, and the Clippers are to play a doubleheader at the park on Sunday at 2 and 5.
