BURLINGTON, VT — The Vermont Lake Monsters 2025 season came to a close on Tuesday night with a 6-2 loss to the New Britain Bees in the third-and-deciding game of their Futures League semifinal series at historic Centennial Field.
New Britain opened the game with a double, single, sacrifice fly and RBI double off Lake Monsters starter Adam Schwartz (Colby) for a 2-0 lead. The Bees then sent nine batters to the plate in the fourth and scoredfour times, including a Camden Righi two-out, two-run single for a 6-0 advantage.
The Lake Monsters were held to just two hits and two walks with six strikeouts over the first 4 ⅔ innings by Bees starter Ty Davis before greeting reliever Devin DeVita with four straight base hits to score two runs to close out the fifth inning.
Bryan Richman (Cal Poly Pomona) got the rally started with a double and scored on a Sam Cavossa (Saint Michaels) RBI single. Hunter Kingsbury (Bryant) and Leandro Guevara (AIC) followed with back-to-back singles to score Cavossa just before Kingsbury was tagged out in a rundown to end the inning.
DeVita settled down after the four straight hits to retire nine of the next 10 batters, including the final eight after a Tommy Popoff (Binghamton) one-out single in the sixth. Jake Risedorf closed out the New Britain victory by retiring Vermont 1-2-3 in the bottom of the ninth.
MONSTER PERFORMANCES
* Zander Teator (Babson) 4.2 IP, 3 H, 2 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 4 SO
* Jack McLaughlin (Tufts) 1.1 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 3 SO
* Cavossa (R, RBI) and Kingsbury both went 2-for-4
BEYOND THE BOXSCORE
* 2nd straight year that the Lake Monsters knocked out of playoffs in game 3 of semifinals after 3 straight finals appearances (2021-23)
* Vermont now with 11-9 record over 20 FCBL playoff games
* After allowing 2-out, 2-run single top 3rd, Teator retired 13 of the last 14 batters he faced
* New Britain will host Norwich in the 1st game of best-of-3 FCBL championship series on Thursday
* The Lake Monsters welcomed their 3-millionth fan all-time at Centennial Field (3,000,565), including 96,869 during the 2025 season (2,691 per game)