Burlington, VT — The Norwich Sea Unicorns got a pair of solo home runs and a pair of two-run doubles to even the Futures League best-of-three semifinal series against the Vermont Lake Monsters with a 7-2 victory in front of 3,137 at historic Centennial Field on Tuesday night.
The two teams now return to Norwich for the third-and-deciding game at 6:30pm Wednesday with the winner moving on to the FCBL Championship Series on Thursday against Westfield, which completed a two-game sweep of New Britain with a 4-0 win on Tuesday.
Kaidan Dossa put Norwich on top 1-0 with a leadoff homer in the third inning off Vermont starter Wyatt Cameron (Central Connecticut), who allowed three runs on six hits with three walks and four strikeouts over five innings in his 85th and most likely final regular-season/playoffs appearance for Vermont.
The Lake Monsters took a 2-1 lead in the fourth, scoring both of their runs on a Dante Pozzi (Catholic) base hit with Jackson Sirois (Virginia) scoring on the RBI single and Jack Rickheim (Harvard) scoring from first base on a fielding error in center.
Cameron retired the first two hitters in the fifth before giving up a walk, single, stolen base and a two-run single that put Norwich back in front 3-2. The Sea Unicorns added a run in the sixth on an Alex Irizarry leadoff homer and two unearned runs in the seventh on another two-run single after a Vermont two-out throwing error prolonged the inning.
The Lake Monsters got a one-out Chone James (Virginia) double in the eighth putting two runners in scoring position, but a pop out and fly out ended the inning and Vermont went down 1-2-3 in the 9th to send the series back to Norwich.
A win for the Lake Monsters on Wednesday at Norwich would send Vermont to Westfield for Game 1 of the finals on Thursday before returning to Centennial Field for Game 2 on Friday. Tickets for the Friday game at Centennial Field would go on sale after Wednesday’s deciding game if the Lake Monsters are victorious at Norwich.
MONSTER PERFORMANCES
* Pozzi 2-for-4, RBI
* Joey Gale (Saint Joseph’s) 3-for-4
* Dylan Knightly (Middlebury) 2 IP, 2 H, 1 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 4 SO
BEYOND THE BOXSCORE
* Just the 3rd time this season that a Vermont opponent has hit 2 home runs in a game (June 19th vs. Westfield and July 19th vs. New Britain)
* Vermont now 7-2 all-time in FCBL semifinal games, 1st loss at Centennial (4-1)
* 3,137 marks largest Centennial attendance for FCBL playoff game (previously 2,937 for 2022 game 3 of finals)
* 3rd-most all-time in 17 post-season dates at Centennial (4,401 September 11, 1996 and 4,095 September 7, 1995).
* Lake Monsters have now drawn over 90,000 at home this season (90,710 for average of 2,519 per game)
NEXT GAME: Wednesday, 6:30pm at Norwich (Semifinal Game 3)
BROADCAST INFO: streaming on FCBLnetwork.com