The more I think about Saturday’s Class B championship the more I agree with Teddy “Ballgame” Huffman. Dobbs Ferry got beat by a better team. Pure and simple. Westhill deserved to win the first title in school history 8-1. Its bats were just monstrous.There’s a reason the team has won 28 in a row.

There was one guy in particular, the lefty cleanup hitter Mike Mascari, who just scared the stuffing out of you every time he came to the plate. The way he crouched his bulk over the plate and then exploded his swing reminded me of Big Papi Ortiz. He had a homer, but so did Mike DeCarr, also nasty, and Ryan Malley. Interestingly all three went to the same spot in right-center. Makes you wonder if there’s a jet stream there a la Yankee Stadium.

Sean LaFaye was put in the impossible position of slowing those guys down. Sure, he didn’t have his best stuff. He missed on a couple of pitches and Westhill fired them into the outfield. He was also feeling the effects of pitching 24 innings in 13 days. (By way of comparison, during the regular season he threw 45.1 innings in 60 days.) He was starting the championship on two days rest after closing the morning semifinal.

The point is not to make excuses. The point I’m making is that all those things I mentioned don’t matter. It didn’t matter if he was rested. It didn’t matter that Westhill had five lefties to face him. It didn’t matter if his command was a little better. It didn’t matter that Tim Gardner didn’t play. It didn’t matter that Sam Connett might have been unfairly ruled out in the seventh inning. Westhill was too good.

As disappointed as they were I think Dobbs realized that. Certainly Huffman did, and said as much, but he’s always a stright shooter. But I bet even the players had that idea in the back of their minds. They’d come as far as they could and ran into a better team and that’s that. Few of them hung their heads. A couple were even laughing. They were not devastated.

After all, they almost didn’t make it to the final. It took a fluky Baltimore chop by Gardner in the sixth inning to score the winning run in a 10-9 win. Maybe it’s just because I was standing next to third base, but I can’t recall ever seeing a ball bounce that high in high school baseball. It sailed clear over the third baseman and by the time it fell to the shortstop Gardner was safe at first. This was minutes after Beekmantown hit a three-run homer to straightaway center to tie a wacky game 9-9.

Gardner later got hurt sliding into third. He appeared to be in a lot of pain. Two people had to help him off the field. During afternoon warmups he tried to jog but immediately felt the leg seize up and knew he couldn’t go. I felt bad that he wasn’t able to play the last game of his varsity career.

In the end Dobbs did not bring home its first championship trophy since 2003. There is still plenty to be proud of. Few expected the Eagles to be here. Kennedy, the defending state champion, was a prohibitive favorite in Class B. Dobbs had just recently moved up from Class C. Although their record, 24-3, was excellent, it was seen as a product of playing in Conference 4.

Turns out they were darn good. They beat Nanuet, a very good team. They shocked Kennedy. LaFaye and Avalos shut down Pine Plains and Southampton in the regionals. And they eked past Beekmantown to make a final game. Gardner played the hero, Coburn swung a mean stick, shortstop Chris Bucci made some awesome plays, and the two pitchers became household names.

Six starters—Bucci, LaFaye, Gardner, Greg Steinfeld, Coburn, Ryan Riefenhauser—graduate. Ten will go in all. Next year’s leaders will include Avalos, James Nieman, and David Muoser.