Reilly, teBoekhorst undecided about 2017

KITCHENER — After the last out was recorded, closing the book on the Kitchener Panthers’ 2016 season, Sean Reilly lingered on the field. It was an emotional moment, and he didn’t want to leave.

Reilly, the Panthers’ 39-yearold designated hitter and perennial all-star, is considering retirement after 19 seasons in the Intercounty Baseball League.

“I started welling up a little bit, coming to the realization this very well could be my last game in the IBL,” said the slugger, whose Panthers were swept in four games in the semifinals by the Barrie Baycats.

As the Baycats and the winner of the London-Toronto series prepare to battle for the IBL championship, the Panthers can only think about next year — and what could have been after a standout 27-10 regular season.

The league’s reigning league Triple Crown winner says he needs to take a few months to decide whether he wants to come back for another season.

“I haven’t made a 100 per cent decision. I didn’t want to make a decision based on emotion,” Reilly said. “Come January or February, I could start to get that itch again.”

Had the Panthers gone on to win their first championship since 2001, Reilly says it would have been easier to say goodbye to the IBL. He’d be leaving the game as one of the league’s greatest hitters of all time, after breaking both the career hits and home-run records in 2016.

“I really don’t have anything left to prove,” he said. “Those records were great records to break, but I was always a guy who would have rather won a championship. Maybe if we had won a championship this year, the chances of me coming back next year would be a little bit lower.”

Panthers manager Dave teBoekhorst, a close friend of Reilly, also might not be back in 2017. With three young kids at home, and starting a new career as a firefighter, he’s not sure he can recommit for the grind of another IBL season.

“I still have a huge passion for coaching and I don’t really want to give it up. But it’s one of those things I’ll have to reevaluate,” he said.

“I’ll have a better answer this fall.”

After the Panthers had one of their best regular seasons in years, they ran into a Barrie club in the playoffs that outpitched them and pounced on mistakes in the field. Reilly thinks the team never really got its rhythm back after losing to London twice in the battle for the pennant.

“We never quite recovered from that,” he said.

“We lost a bit of our momentum. It’s tough to swallow, but that’s baseball. Ultimately, I think we got beat by a better team this year.”

The manager, whose Panthers started the season on an 11-game wining streak, said fans’ expectations about the team grew exponentially after their hot start — and were compounded by the splashy off-season deal to sign Cubans Noelvis Entenza, Ian Rendon and Frank Camilo Morejon.

“We definitely didn’t want those expectations. We wanted to be a front-runner, and we wanted to be the guys that people looked at and said: ‘Those are the guys we have to beat,’ ” he said.

“But, to put the expectations on a team and say, ‘These guys are just going to waltz through the league,’ that’s kind of unfair,” he added.

Reilly, a father of two, said he hasn’t heard from the Panthers yet if they want him back. But his decision will also factor in on the kind of team they want to build for next year.

“Maybe I’m too old. Maybe they want to go younger and move in a different direction,” he said.

“I’d love to win a championship in Kitchener,” Reilly said.

“But it’s got to be the right circumstances, and it’s got to be the right team. It’s also got to work out for me and my family, as well.”