Vermont Beats Tri-City 11-7 Sunday

BURLINGTON, VT --- The Vermont Lake Monsters closed out the 2011 regular-season with an 11-7 victory over the Tri-City ValleyCats in New York-Penn League action Sunday afternoon at historic Centennial Field to keep their playoff hopes alive, then 80 minutes later won the Stedler Division title after Connecticut lost 6-5 in 16 innings to Lowell.

Vermont, which won its first division title since back-to-back McNamara Division championships in 1995 and 1996, will host the Auburn Doubledays in the first game of a best-of-three semifinal series at Centennial on Tuesday starting at 7:05 pm.

Sunday started poorly for the Lake Monsters as starter Tyler Vail and reliever Eric Potter stuggled with their control in the second inning as Tri-City scored five runs on just one hit to take a 5-0 lead. Vail walked the first three batters and then hit Ryan McCurdy to force the game's first run, then Potter allowed two runs to score on wild pitches and allowed a two-run single to Jordan Scott.

But the Lake Monsters quickly tied the game with five runs in the bottom of the second on a Jacob Tanis two-out two-run single and a three-run homer from Sean Jamieson off Tri-City starter Kyle Hallock. It was the third home run of the season for Jamieson and his second in as many days.

Vermont took the lead in the third on a Dusty Robinson RBI single after a Bobby Crocker one-out double, while Jamieson gave the Lake Monsters a 7-5 lead with an RBI single in the fourth. The ValleyCats were able to tie the game at seven off reliever Drew Bailey on a Scott RBI triple and Andrew Muren RBI single.

Michael Fabiaschi led off the seventh for Vermont with a single and moved to third on a one-out Bobby Crocker single before B.A. Vollmuth lined a two-out two-run triple to rightcenter giving Vermont a 9-7 lead. In just four games with Vermont, Vollmuth went 7-for-14 with eight runs, four doubles, one triple and six RBI.

The Lake Monsters added another run in the seventh on an error and another in the eighth on a Nick Rickles squeeze bunt before Tanner Peters closed out the season with a 1-2-3 ninth inning with two strikeouts. Jeff Urlaub (3-1) came into the game in relief of Bailey to end the sixth and retired all seven batters he faced for the win.

Scott was 2-for-3 with three RBI and reliever Travis Blankenship (1-2) allowed three runs (two earned) in the seventh to take the loss for Tri-City (33-42). Crocker went 3-for-5 with three runs, while Jamieson was 2-for-4 with four RBI for Vermont (39-35), which swept its first three-game series of the year and ended the regular-season on a four-game winning streak.