NASHUA, NH — With two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning, the Nashua Silver Knights snapped a 5-5 tie with a single, base on balls and walkoff RBI double for a come-from-behind 6-5 victory over the Vermont Lake Monsters at Holman Stadium to even the Futures League’s best-of-three championship series 1-1. Third-and-deciding game will be 6:35pm Friday at historic Centennial Field.
Vermont jumped out to a 4-0 lead with two runs in both the first and third innings, but the Lake Monsters offense went silent with 16 of the next 17 batters retired through the eighth inning. In the meantime, the Silver Kings rallied with a run in the fourth and sixth inning before scoring three times in the seventh on a bases loaded wild pitch, RBI groundout and another wild pitch.
Harrison Didawick (Virginia) lead off the top of the ninth with a double down the leftfield line and advanced to third on a Cooper Kelly (Kansas) sacrifice bunt before scoring on a Tommy Martin (Yale) chopper in front of the plate for an RBI single. Martin stole second, but the Lake Monsters left go ahead run there with a pair of strikeouts to end inning.
George Goldstein (Middlebury) retired the first two batters in the bottom of the ninth before allowing a single to right and issuing a walk on a 3-2 pitch. Jack McDermott jumped on Goldstein’s next pitch for an RBI double to center for the walkoff victory.
Tickets for the winner takes all FCBL Championship game Friday are now on sale through www.vermontlakemonsters.com. Tickets can also be purchased by phone (802-655-4200) or in person at the Centennial Field Ticket Office starting at 11:00am Friday.
Monster Performances
Nick Berger 5.1 IP, 4 H, 2 R, 0 BB, 3 SO
Tommy Martin 2-for-4, 1 BB, 1 R, 1 RBI
Gio Cueto 2-for-3, 1 BB, 1 R, 1 RBI
Monster Highlights
* Brian Schuab (Trinity) had a sacrifice fly and Colby Brouillette (BFA/Clarkson) an RBI single for 2-0 lead top 1st
* Gio Cueto (Wake Forest) and Cooper Kelly (Kansas) both had RBI singles top 3rd for 4-0 advantage
* By scoring first 4 runs of game, Vermont had scored 26 unearned dating back to game 2 of semifinals
* Oliver Pudvar (CVU) tossed a 1-2-3 bottom 8th with a strikeout, 2nd straight scoreless inning in as many days
Beyond The Boxscore
* Vermont now 3-2 in Futures League championship games and 7-2 in FCBL playoffs games past 2 years
* 11th time in 20 total losses (regular-season/playoffs) that Lake Monsters have lost game in which they led at some point, 5th time losing after leading by 4 or 5 runs.
* Vermont finishes with record of 17-13 in road games, including 6 walkoff losses
* Lake Monsters are now 6-9 in 1-run games
Next Game: 6:35pm Friday at Nashua (Game 3 Championship Series)