BURLINGTON, VT — After a Westfield six-run top of the eighth inning gave the Starfires an 8-7 lead, the Lake Monsters got a two-out Hunter Kingsbury RBI triple and Aidan Botti go ahead RBI single to give Vermont a 9-8 Futures League victory on Thursday night at historic Centennial Field.
Vermont had built a 4-1 advantage behind a pair of two-run homers from Shaun McMillan (St. John’s) in the first and Nick Frontino (Mississippi State) in the fourth. After a Cooper Berry (Pomona Pitzer) triple in the sixth, Frontino knocked him home with an RBI single and later scored on a Jeremy Sosa (Manhattan) RBI single.
Lake Monsters took a 7-2 lead in the seventh when Frontino picked up his fourth RBI of the night with a bases loaded walk scoring McMillan, who had led off the inning with his league-leading 14th double. But Westfield scored the six runs in the eighth on three walks, an error and three hits, including a go ahead Griffin Mills two-run double for an 8-7 lead.
Sosa led off with a wind-aided double that fell in safely along the leftfield line between three Starfires to open the bottom of the eighth. Two outs later with Sosa on third, Kingsbury (Bryant) lined his RBI triple down in the rightfield corner to tie the game. Botti (Cuesta), playing in his first game since June 17th, grounded a 3-1 pitch into center field for the eventual game-winning RBI single.
MONSTER PERFORMANCES
* Frontino 2-for-3, BB, 2 R, HR, 4 RBI
* McMillan 2-for-4, BB, 2 R, 2B, HR, 2 RBI
* Botti 2-for-3, RBI
BEYOND THE BOXSCORE
|* Vermont (27-16) has won 3 straight to move 11 games over .500 for the 1st time this season
* Lake Monsters are now 11-0 vs. Westfield this season, including 9-0 at Centennial
* McMillan leads the FCBL with 10 home runs, 14 doubles and 43 home runs
* Frontino is 3rd Lake Monster with a 4-RBI game this season (McMillan twice, Sosa 1 time)|
* Starter John Delgado (Stevenson) allowed 1 run (solo homer) on 3 hits with 2 walks and 6 strikeouts over 4 innings (leads the FCBL with 1.15 ERA, 39 innings pitched and 47 strikeouts)
* 7 different Lake Monsters had 2 hits as Vermont outhit Westfield 14-6
* Bryan Richman (Cal Poly Pomona) was 2-for-5 to extend his hitting streak to 12 straight games
* 7 Vermont pitchers combined for 11 walks and 10 strikeouts (2nd Monsters win this season with 10+ walks)
* Landon Miller (San Jacinto) got final 2 outs of 8th for win, while Shamus Kelly (Wesleyan) came on in 9th with 2 runners on base and retired final three batters to earn save.
* 1st time since August 7, 2022 that Vermont offense had 2 triples in a game
Next Game: Friday vs. Westfield, 6:35pm
Promotion: Star Wars Night and Post-Game Fireworks
Broadcast: WYCI (TV), FCBLnetwork.com (stream)