Hudson Valley tops Vermont for NY-Penn title

The catcher's mitt popped for the final time in the ninth inning and the celebration began.

It rippled its way from the dugout to the mound and beyond the fence into the night, with all of the whooping and cheering and bottle-popping expected of a professional baseball championship.

But the Vermont Lake Monsters were left to retreat to their clubhouse for the final time. It had been their year — until it wasn't.

Behind the strength of a five-run second inning and combined one-hitter from Drew Strotman and Andrew Gist, the Hudson Valley Renegades captured their third New York-Penn League crown with a 6-0 win at Centennial Field on Thursday night.

Strotman spun six innings of one-hit ball, fanning five batters and walking just one, while Gist shut the door with three scoreless innings of relief to seal the championship series sweep.

The title is the Renegades' first since 2012.

Vermont, the Stedler Division champion, had been chasing the franchise's second banner. The other came in 1996, its last trip to the finals — before six current players were born.

"I'm tremendously proud of what they've been able to accomplish this season," Vermont manager Aaron Nieckula said. "Yeah, we fell short of our goal. We had three missions to accomplish: One was get into the playoffs, one was to win the first round and the other one was to win a championship ... nonetheless we saw tremendous progress from each and every one of these players"

The finalists had battled to the 13th inning the night before, with the Renegades snatching a 3-2 win.

But Hudson Valley, which had gone 6-6 against Vermont in 12 regular season games, avoided the postseason rubber match with some of its finest play to date. 

"They were playing hot baseball toward the latter third of the season, they ran off (15) wins or so and were playing good ball in all facets," Nieckula said. "But when you've got one of the better pitching staffs in the league you're going to win a lot of games. ...

"We were evenly matched, I think, throughout the entire season. We just happened to fall flat in the championship round."

Greg Deichmann's infield single in the fourth turned out to be the lone hit for Vermont. The Lake Monsters stranded five on the bases and never got a runner past second.

It was a far cry from 24 hours earlier when they cranked out 14 hits on Hudson Valley's home field.

"I just think we were just missing balls," said first baseman Aaron Arruda. "I'll give (Strotman) credit, he was good, he was mixing up back and forth, off the plate, on the plate, up to 97, down to 81."

Vermont starter Parker Dunshee took the loss, allowing five runs on six hits in 1 1/3 innings.

All of the damage came in the game-breaking second frame.

Rafelin Lorenzo's double to left put runners on second and third, and both came home a batter later with Angel Perez's hard single to right field that eluded Lake Monsters second baseman Ryan Gridley with a vicious hop.

After a walk to Vidal Brujan, a wild pitch scored Perez from third and Brujan from first after a throwing error by Vermont catcher Jordan Devencenzi. Taylor Walls' towering homer over the right field fence in the same at-bat stretched the deficit to 5-0.

Yet after the miscues in the second, the Vermont bullpen took over to stop the bleeding, with Brian Howard (3 2/3), Wandisson Charles, Branden Kelliher, Argenis Blanco and Malik Jones yielding just three hits the rest of the way.

"The bullpen came in and did a great job," Nieckula said. "We tried to give guys opportunities, get everybody in the game — I think everybody played throughout the playoffs."

While the Lake Monsters pounced on the league's best-of-three playoff format — the lower seed hosts the first game, then plays up to two on the road — using a home win and a road win against Mahoning Valley to reach the final, the circumstances stung against the Renegades.

One 13th-inning run made Thursday's contest a win-or-it's-over showdown.

"Best-out-of-three is tough," Nieckula said. "I'm not a big fan of it, I'd rather see the best-of-five, it gives you a little more of a true indicator, but that's what it is at this level. It's three. You just try to go out there and play good baseball."

And that's exactly what the Lake Monsters did this summer, taking the season further than any team in two decades.

"It was a really fun summer," Arruda said. "Every summer of baseball I've played, this is by far the most fun I've had."

Contact Austin Danforth at 651-4851 or edanforth@freepressmedia.com. Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/eadanforth