The Nashua Silver Knights celebrate their 6-5 FCBL championship win over Vermont at Burlington's Centennial Field on Friday night. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

BURLINGTON, Vt. – Sixth Sense.

The Nashua Silver Knights had it, and it helped them capture the Future Collegiate Baseball League championship for the sixth time in their 12 seasons Friday night, 6-5 over the heavily favored Vermont Lake Monsters.

Silver Knights designated hitter Kyle Wolff boomed a two-run homer in the top of the ninth off Vermont reliever Wyatt Cameron with the Knights two outs away from watching the Lake Monsters celebrate on their home Centennial Field. Instead it was the other way around.

The Knights had lost Game 1 on Wednesday night in a big way, 12-0, and had been outscored 16-0 through the first 12 innings of the best-of-three series. From the fourth inning Thursday on, they outscored Vermont 12-6.

“We got down 12-0 the first game and we knew all the pressure was on Vermont,” hero Wolff said.

“I had a feeling in the ninth,” Silver Knights manager Kyle Jackson said. “This team will do it. It will give me another heart attack. … That’s a very tough team.

“Wolff told me before he came in, first pitch slider, I’m going to look for it.”

Nashua trailed 5-4 going into the top of the ninth, and there was already one out when Finals MVP Jack McDermott, who had a scintillating playoff week, hitting .400 with two homers and nine RBIs, came to including a walk-off double in Game 2, came to the plate. He nearly struck out, checking his swing just in time and then roped a double to right to start the rally.

Wolff hit the next pitch deep into the night to left center.

Off a slider, of course.

“(Cameron) hung a slider and I just put a good swing on it,” Wolff said. “I was locked in the whole game. And Jack (McDermott) had a helluva at-bat. I knew that startled him a little bit, he was throwing strikes.

“I barreled the ball three times, I said ‘Something’s got to fall sometime.’

“And I was thinking if Jack gets on, we can make some magic out of it.”

McDermott almost didn’t get the chance.

“That was nerve racking, I was just praying (home plate ump Jeff Kleiner) didn’t say I went,” McDermott said. “The crowd (2,937) was going crazy. It was a changeup and I stayed up on it a bit and was lucky to hook it down the line.

“It’s crazy, it hasn’t really sunk in yet. Tried to get Wolffie up, and he happened to put a fantastic swing on it. I knew (it was gone) right away.”

It was an incredible, memorable game, perhaps one that Vermont manager Pete Wilk has seen before.

“Not like that,” he said. “It was a spectacular baseball game. You have to tip your hat to that club. A tremendous offense. We just came up short.”

Wilk said he was thinking of bringing in closer George Goldstein, who was victimized by McDermott the night before.

“Obviously the McDermott double last night was fresh in my mind,” he said. “I think if we were in a different part of the batting order you would have seen George.”

But the Lake Monsters did see Thursday’s winner Will Andrews, and there was more drama left. With one out, Vermont got consecutive hits from Cooper Kelly and Tommy Martin putting runners on first and third. Jackson had Harrison Didawick intentionally walked after Martin stole second to keep the double play in order.

Andrews, with the crowd going crazy got the tough Jimmy Evans to pop to second, bringing up Lake Monsters cleanup hitter Brian Schaub, a Knights killer the last two seasons. However, Schaub flew out to right and the Knights stormed out onto the field in celebration.

Silver Knights infielder and Finals MVP Jack McDermott handles the throw but not in time to stop Vermont’s Tommy Martin from stealing second during Friday nights FCBL title game at UVM’s Centennial Field. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

It was a battle – Knights owner John Creedon, Jr. called it a “boxing match” – the entire night. Nashua, which outhit Vermont 10-7, struck first with a run on Matt D’Amato’s sac fly in the second. Vermont took a 3-1 lead in the bottom half on Schaub’s bases loaded, bases-clearing double, two of the runs unearned as the door was opened by Brady Desjardins’ error at short on a sure double play ball. In fact, Schaub’s hit was almost a fly out as center fielder Matt D’Mato caught up to it but the ball popped out of his glove.

But Desjardins made up for his miscue with an RBI single in the fourth, and Nashua actually went back on top 4-3 in the fifth when McDermott (3 for 4, two RBIs, two runs scored) hit a 2-0 offering from Vermont starter Ian Parent deep into the night with O’Brien on first after a walk.

Meanwhile, Nashua reliever turned starter Noah Wachter did exactly what he was asked to do: keep his team in the game. He pitched much better than his line showed, as he allowed just three hits in 5.2 innings, but he ran out of gas in the sixth with two walks and a hit by pitch to load the bases with two out.

“He said ‘Leave me out there as long as you can’,” Jackson said. “He’d never gone this long. Give him credit. He battled, and came through for us.”

Jackson summoned the league leader in wins, Cole Glassburn, who engaged in a battle royal with Vermont’s potential series MVP candidate, catcher Connor Bowman. Bowman engaged Glassburn in a classic at-bat, finally bounce a ball through the infield for two runs and a 5-4 Vermont lead.

But Nashua had other ideas. They won their first title in the league’s inaugural four-team year, but its growth to eight hasn’t stopped the Knights, who repeated in 2012, then after a drought won in 2016-17, and then in the pandemic year of 2020.

But none of those wins were in a game as entertaining as this.

“This,” Creedon said, “was won for the ages. We have to design some rings now.”