The Norwich Sea Unicorns captured its third consecutive Futures Collegiate Baseball League championship with a decisive 13-4 victory over the New Britain Bees on Saturday, August 16 before 3,589 fans at New Britain Stadium.

The Sea Unicorns, who joined the Futures League in 2021, became the first team in league history to win three straight championships.

“Three in a row, that’s crazy,” Sea Unicorns designated hitter Bryce Detwiler said. “You can’t really ask for much more than winning three championships in a row. I’m just happy to be a part of it.”

Detwiler, who will be a freshman at UConn in the fall, was selected the postseason Most Valuable Player. He went 8-for-21 with a home run and 6 RBIs in five games. He also had a walk-off hit in the 12th inning of the Sea Unicorns’ 5-4 come-from-behind win in Game 2 of the series.

After the first two games of this intra-state best-of-three series ended in thrilling walk-off fashion, the Sea Unicorns rolled to its historic three-peat by exploding for eight runs in the eighth inning.

“That was the mindset all day, to get to their bullpen early,” Norwich Sea Unicorns manager Kyle Dembrowski said. “I can’t say enough about these guys. It’s such a resilient club. Every effort down the stretch and in the playoffs was gutsy.”

Trailing 4-1 in the top of the fifth, Norwich rallied for four runs to take the lead for good. Chase Chaplin (Yale), Gavin O’Brien (UMass), Connor Scanlan (Fairfield) and Detwiler each had two hits apiece for the Sea Unicorns.

The Sea Unicorns pitching corps in the championship game included Cooper Maher (Northeastern), Sean Connolly (Stonehill), Justin Gouin (Hartford), Frank Spirito (UConn) and Matt Wootton (Eastern Conn.).

Cam Righi (UConn), George Slauson (Saint Anselm), Brennan Staubley (Southern Conn.), Easton Masse (Boston College), and Julius Rosado (Rutgers) each had two hits for New Britain.

Righi, who graduated from Wethersfield High School in June, was selected Connecticut’s Gatorade Player of the Year. Righi went 6-for-15 with a double, triple and three RBIs in the championship series. The outfielder is headed to UConn.

After finishing the season with sub .500 records, the Sea Unicorns and Bees eliminated the top two seeds, the Worcester Bravehearts and the Vermont Lake Monsters in the semifinals. The Sea Unicorns were the first four seed in league history to knock out the top seed in the playoffs.

“It was an amazing summer,” said Dembrowski, who is an assistant coach at Holy Cross. “I’m just incredibly proud of these guys. We (coaching staff) just found ways to make guys as effective as possible. If you go look at the box scores for these playoff games, it’s a lot more than nine guys. It’s a whole team effort.”

Game 2
The Norwich Sea Unicorns evened the Futures Collegiate Baseball League championship series with a thrilling 5-4 extra-innings victory over the New Britain Bees before 2,197 fans at Dodd Stadium in Norwich.

The Sea Unicorns rallied from an early 4-0 deficit, tying it with two runs in the bottom of the ninth and then winning Game 2 of this best-of-three series on Detwiler’s broken bat single in the bottom of the 12th inning.

“I’m just happy I could pull through for my team,” Detwiler said. “We’ve been in extra innings for the past three games. We lost the first one in New Britain so we had to come back stronger than ever.”

New Britain took a 4-2 lead into the bottom of the ninth and was three outs away from winning its first Futures League title. Norwich, however, kept its historic three-peat hopes alive with a stunning rally and a clutch single from O’Brien.

Game 1
Righi delivered a bases loaded single in the bottom of the 10th inning to lift the Bees to a 1-0 victory over the two-time defending champion Norwich Sea Unicorns in the finals opener Wednesday night at New Britain Stadium.

Norwich got a terrific pitching performance from Brendan Grady (Trinity). The lefthander took a no-hitter into the seventh inning. After a pair of groundouts, Masse broke up Grady’s no-hit bid with a single to center field.