DURFEE BASEBALL: Hispanic infusion has helped make Hilltoppers one big family

Story will be updated with videos.

FALL RIVER — It’s the great debate on Elsbree Street, a fun one. What is the official language of the Durfee High varsity baseball team.

In any year past, the simple answer was English. This year? Let’s just say that at the start of Thursday’s practice at Skip Lewis Field, with the team’s seven present Hispanic players pulled aside for a photograph, the remaining players stretching down the left field line were counting in Spanish.

“We’ll say mostly Spanish, but English, too, because the guys that speak English, we’ve been helping them out too, so they can learn to speak Spanish,” said junior Ismael Moreno, infielder and, arguably, the team’s leading character.

Moreno, who easily and sometimes randomly flips from his Dominican Republic Spanish accent to a standard American news broadcaster voice, is one of eight Hispanic student-athletes on this very successful and second-seeded Durfee team (15-5) which will host seventh-seeded Wellesley (13-8) in a Division 1 South quarterfinal on Monday at 4 p.m. at UMass Dartmouth.

The remaining seven Hispanic Hilltoppers — Alex Dominguez, Edop Bergollo Colon, Ernesto Perez, Jesus Rosario Pedraza, Jose Arrieta, Jose Pabon, Regim Sanchez – came to the United States from Puerto Rico, five of them in the wake of Hurricane Maria ravaging the island in September of 2017.

Moreno and Arrieta played with the Durfee varsity last year. With the Hispanic numbers up to seven this year, Durfee baseball has received a major league infusion of Latin America baseball enthusiasm. Excitement over games and practices. Lots of chatter. Oh, and those now trademark Durfee dugout chants … in Spanish, of course.

Listen and if it sounds like more than seven guys chanting, that because it’s much more than that. The white players can routinely be heard joining the chanting in their ever-improving Spanish.

With this crew, it’s it’s all about family, or perhaps better said, familia. Baseball’s just the vehicle that’s brought them together.

“When we first came to this school we didn’t really know each other. It makes us more like a family. We’re together every single day supporting each other. Yes, family,” said Moreno, who’s batting .362 and serves as interpreter for teammates just starting to get a handle on English.

“This team is a whole family,” Pedraza said. “I was nervous at the beginning of the season, but I’m really enjoying and I love every single guy on this team. It’s a good team, a great team.”

Durfee head coach Dave Ulmschneider couldn’t know for sure how his ethnically diverse crew would come together this year. He got a good hint on the first night, during a conditioning drill. With a winded white player struggling mightily to finish, one of the Hispanic players jumped back into the drill to encourage the struggling player. Upon the player finishing, all the Hispanics cheered mightily.

Familia was born.

“It’s been a different experience,” said Ulmschneider, who previously coached at Portsmouth High and along with Durfee assistant coach Jay Martin owns the Opportunities for Players baseball program. “From night one they brought a different energy. The level of energy went up night one. They really set the example of the family dynamic. Everybody kind of followed their lead, which was interesting to see.

“(When) they stretch, they (Hilltoppers) count in Spanish, even when they’re not around. It’s the same with the cheers. They started Game 1 and there was no letup. A lot of times, things start going bad or whatever, people are quiet. Not with them. They cheer the whole game. Everybody’s up the whole game. They’re pulling for each other the whole game. They’re positive with each other and they’ve kind of set the tone for the entire game.”

Translating for Pabon, Moreno said, “This team is very special because we’re all united like a family. This is his first year over here and he loves it. And we’ve got to keep working hard because this could be the best team it could be.”

Seniors Brayden Bustin and Ethan Ferreira are two Durfee seniors who have passionately embraced the baseball/cultural broadening of horizons.

“The team has been great,” Bustin said. “They’ve taken over chants with all Spanish chants. I think it’s kind of almost intimidated other teams because how together we are because they’ve accepted all of us as one. And they don’t only let the Spanish kids do the Spanish chants. The American kids do it. And we mix in our American chants and we just kind of keep a good spirit in the dugout.”

“It comes, really from accepting one another,” Ferreira said. “With their chants, we come together more as a team. We’re more loud. I think we intimidate other teams. They just keep it loose for us during practice and games.

“We’re not 100 percent focused on the game, but we are, though. What I mean by that is that we’re loose. We’re not uptight, too worried about the game. And that’s when we play our best baseball, when we’re playing to have fun.”

Email Greg Sullivan at gsullivan@heraldnews.com. Follow him @GregSullivanHN.