As the Vermont Lake Monsters inaugural Futures Collegiate Baseball League season quickly approaches, the former Minor League New York–Penn League team’s roster is beginning to take shape and the team posted its first three players all with Vermont connections: pitchers Leif Bigelow of Guilford, Owen Kellington of Plainsfield, and Middlebury’s Evan Stewart.

Teams of the Futures League are required to carry a minimum 26-player roster with at least 13 players coming from either a New England college and/or a New England native.

Bigelow, a 2018 graduate of Brattleboro High School, is currently a member of the University of Maine Black Bears (after transferring from the University of Connecticut), while Kellington is currently a senior at U-32 High School, where he tossed a 15-strikeout no-hitter on May 4 versus Northfield and has committed to attend UConn in the Fall.

Neither Bigelow nor Kellington will be with the Lake Monsters when the season begins May 27, but Bigelow is expected to join the team in early June and Kellington in mid-June after the end of season/graduation at U-32. Stewart, who did not pitch for the Panthers this spring, is scheduled to begin the season with Vermont.

The Futures League, which has had over 150 players taken in the MLB draft the last 10 years, is made up of current college players (including incoming freshmen) from around the country.

More players will be announced on Lake Monsters social media over the next couple of weeks ahead of the team’s FCBL debut on May 27 at Westfield and home opener May 29 versus the Norwich Sea Unicorns at Centennial Field in Burlington.

From 1994 to 2020, the Lake Monsters were members of Minor League Baseball’s New York–Penn League formerly affiliated with the Major League Montreal Expos, the Washington Nationals, and finally the Oakland A’s.

Ahead of the 2021 season, the Oakland Athletics ended their affiliation with the Lake Monsters, ending the 10-season affiliation with the team.

Republished from May 5 The Sun, a community newspaper published in Middlebury