AUBURN, NY --- The Auburn Doubledays advanced to the New York-Penn League Championship Series with a 7-2 victory over the Vermont Lake Monsters Friday night at Falcon Park in the deciding game of the best-of-three semifinal series between the two teams.

Auburn scored all seven of its runs over the first three innings, including three runs in both the second and third innings. Six of the seven runs were charged to Vermont starter Seth Frankoff (0-1), who did not allow a run in 19 innings over his previous three starts and never more than four runs in any of his 14 starts during the regular-season.

Carlos Alvarez smacked a one-out triple and scored on a groundout to give Auburn a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the first inning. The Doubledays used four hits off Frankoff in the second to score three runs, including an RBI single from Wilfri Pena, for a 4-0 advantage.

Vermont got its only two runs of the game in the top of the third as Sean Jamieson and Chad Oberacker had back-to-back one-out singles, Nick Rickles walked to load the bases and Crocker grounded a two-run single to center cutting the lead in half. But with the tying runs on base, Dusty Robinson grounded into a double play to end the inning.

The Doubledays quickly got back to work in the bottom of the third as Russell Moldenhauer led off with a walk and Angelberth Montilla doubled him to third to knock Frankoff out of the game. Bryce Ortega then greeted reliever Logan Chitwood with a two-run double and later scored on a Rickles throwing error on a strikeout wild pitch for the 7-2 lead.

The Lake Monsters had chances for more runs as they put runners on base in every inning but the sixth inning, but left the bases loaded in the fourth and ninth innings for a total of 13 runners left on base in the game. Rickles did not have an official at bat in the game, walking four times and getting hit by a pitch, while Jamieson was 1-for-2 with three walks.

Vermont's bullpen shutout the Doubledays on just two hits over the final five innings with no walks and nine strikeouts. Eric Potter struckout six of the seven batters he faced in the fifth and sixth innings, while Crocker went 3-for-5 at the plate as the Lake Monsters matched Auburn with 10 hits for the game. Alvarez and Montilla both had three hits for Auburn, which advances to its first New York-Penn League finals since winning the NY-Penn League title in 2007.

The Lake Monsters 2011 season comes to a close with its first semifinal series loss in the team's third playoff appearance (swept 1995 and 1996 semifinals) after Vermont won the Stedler Division championship with a regular-season record of 39-35.

**Courtesy International League**