Baseball: Lake Monsters Take Series With 4-3 Win at State College

Posted on by George Commo

Courtesy Vermont Lake Monsters

STATE COLLEGE, PA — Anthony Churlin and Aaron Arruda led off the ninth inning with back-to-back doubles to snap a 3-3 tie, while Chase Cohen and Jose Mora combined on a two-hitter as the Vermont Lake Monsters beat the State College Spikes 4-3 in New York-Penn League action at Medlar Field on Friday.

Churlin led off the ninth with a groundball double down the leftfield line and Arruda followed with a double off the wall in straightaway center off Spikes reliever Michael Baird (0-1), who had entered the inning with five strikeouts and just one hit allowed.

Jose Mora (1-1), who had come on in relief of starter Chase Cohen to start the fourth inning, walked Delvin Perez to start the bottom of the ninth before getting a strikeout and a pair of groundouts to give Vermont two wins in the three-game series at State College.

After a pair of thre-hit games on Thursday, Alfonso Rivas and Jonah Bride continued their hot hitting in the first inning Friday as Rivas lined a one-out double and Bride a two-out RBI single to left giving Vermont a quick 1-0 lead.

Cohen tossed three scoreless innings in his third start for the Lake Monsters as the 2018 ninth-round pick out of Georgia Southern allowed just a two-out single in the first and a leadoff walk in the third, while three of his four strikeouts came in the second inning.

The Lake Monsters built their advantage to 3-0 in the fourth on a bases loaded Marcos Brito RBI single (scoring Payton Squier who had earlier singled to snap an 0-for-26 stretch) and a Joseph Pena sacrifice fly. The Spikes tied the game with the help of three errors (all by shortstop Brito) leading to three unearned runs.

Two of the three unearned runs in came in the fifth before State College tied game in the seventh with the other unearned run off of Mora, who allowed just one hit with three walks and seven strikeouts over six innings to lower his ERA to 0.99 overall. The two-hitter was the second of the series for Lake Monster pitchers.

Vermont (14-13) heads to Connecticut for a three-game series against the Tigers beginning 6:05 pm Saturday. The Lake Monsters return to Centennial Field for a three-game homestand against Staten Island beginning Tuesday.