Vermont Lake Monsters

Geertsma Go Ahead Homer In 9-7 Win Monday

boxscore

BURLINGTON, VT — Zach Geertsma hit a go ahead solo home run in the bottom of the seventh inning as the Vermont Lake Monsters won their sixth straight Futures League contest with a 9-7 victory over the Norwich Sea Unicorns in front of a crowd of 4,045 on Delta Dental Diamond at Centennial Field Monday night. 

The one-out, 368-foot home run was the league-lead tying fourth of the season for Geertsma (Mississippi State) and the third Vermont home run in the two-game series with Norwich. Reed Stygles (BFA-St. Albans/USC Aiken) had worked out of a one-out runner on third jam in the top of the seventh with back-to-back strikeouts and added two more strikeouts to start the eighth to earn the victory. 

Lake Monsters had jumped on top 5-0 with a five-run bottom of the second inning, which started with a Tyler Wiltsey (Rutgers) two-run single and ended with a Hunter Strohm (Mississippi State) RBI infield single. Norwich came right back with four in the top of the third and three more in the fifth for a 7-5 lead. 

Vermont got two runs back in the bottom of the fifth including a Wiltsey game-tying RBI single. The Lake Monsters added an insurance run in the eighth when Bryan Richman (Cal Poly Pomona) scored from second on a Brenden Walsh (Endicott) infield single and Sam Labrecque (Oberlin) recorded the final four outs for his league-leading seventh save. 

MONSTER STARS
* Wiltsey 2-for-4, R, 3 RBI
* Geertsma 2-for-4, BB, 2 R, HR, RBI
* Stygles (W) 1.2 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 4 SO

MONSTER HIGHLIGHTS
* Vermont (24-10) has now won a season-best 6 straight overall (all at home) and 12 of last 13 at Centennial dating back to June 9th
* Lake Monsters have hit 6 homers in last 11 games after just 4 home runs in first 23 contests
* Vermont has now scored 9+ runs 12 times (10-2) this season and are also 6-8 when opponent 7+ runs
* Cory Pascarella (Monmouth) struck out 4 of the 6 batters he faced over 1.1 scoreless innings
* The 4,045 is largest Centennial crowd of season,  tied for 6th largest since joining FCBL in 2021and are now averaging a league-best 2,476
* Vermont has a 5-game lead in the FCBL standings over New Britain (18-14) and Worcester (19-15)

UPCOMING 
Next Game: Tuesday at Nashua, 6:00pm (FCBLnetwork.com)
Next Home Game: Friday vs Westfield. 6:35pm