The Silver Knights were in celebration mode Friday night at Centennial Field in Burlington, Vt. after winning the 2022 FCBL championship. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

BURLINGTON, Vt. – The accolades are coming in from all over for the Nashua Silver Knights. Even former owner Drew Weber checked in with his congratulations.

“The Knights,” he texted, “haven’t lost their touch.”

Yes, it’s another Futures Collegiate League championship for the Nashua Silver Knights, who now follow the 50 percent rule after Friday night’s dramatic 6-5 win on Kyle Wolff’s two-run homer in the ninth to remember over the favored Vermont Lake Monsters at the University of Vermont’s Centennial Field. They’ve now won half the titles awarded in the FCBL’s 12 years.

This championship was more like the titles won in 2016 and’17, when they were close to a .500 team during the regular season and then just took off during the post season.

It was an interesting mix of players who simply enjoyed each other’s constant company more than anything. They’d drive their manager, Kyle Jackson, crazy with sometimes amusement and sometimes frustration, but he knew a good chemical mix when he saw one, a group that didn’t let anything bother them. That’s why he called them “misfits.”

But they fit the mold of a championship team, an emotional team for sure.

“Tell me about it,” Jackson, who has now won two championships in his three years as manager, and was the pitching coach for the 2016-17 titles as well. “What did we say (Thursday)? They’re going to give me a heart attack.”

But Jackson, fully invested, took a few moments away from the celebration to shed a few tears. Tears of joy.

“I had a feeling in the ninth that if we could just get one runner on, this team will do it,” he said. “Call me weak in the needs, I’m just so proud of these guys.”

That’s because the team started out 4-13 and then, as Jackon said, bounced back to have a “phenomenal July, to move up to second place and then finish third. … That (Vermont) is a very tough team. They don’t quit, just like us.”

That was the Knights theme all season. They finished up the year so-so but started the playoffs in dominant fashion with a sweep of No. 2 seed New Britain. In both series, the Knights were the underdog and didn’t have home field advantage.

They persevered. Wolff had hit four fly ball outs earlier, one caught dramatically in right by Vermont’s Jimmy Evans in the third. He expected a slider on the first pitch from Vermont reliever Wyatt Cameron, got it, and boom.

“I just got lucky,” Wolff said. “Wyatt pitched his butt off. The ball fortunately went out and we won the game.”

But Wolff also spoke of the team’s incredible chemistry.

“There’s no other team I’d rather play for, no other team I’d rather be around,” he said. “Guys have your back no matter what.

“We got down 12-0 in the first game and we still felt all the pressure was on Vermont. They had to be perfect, they had to come to our field (Holman Stadium on Thursday) and then ultimately come here again, and in Game 3 anything can happen.”

After that 12-0 drubbing, it wasn’t looking good for Nashua, because after three innings in Game 2 the Knights were down 4-0. But something changed. In the first 12 innings, outscored 16-0. Over the final 15, Nashua outscored Vermont 12-6 and it was enough.

Of course, it takes someone to rise up, and McDermott was the key. He hit .400 for the postseason with three homers, three doubles, and nine RBIs.

He had a two-run homer on Friday after getting the walk-off double on Thursday night and, of course, his double with one out in the ninth Friday night kept Nashua alive, allowing Wolff to hit. During the regular season he hit .253 with 11 doubles and 20 RBIs, but zero homers. But he showed he was someone you’d want up at the plate, and this past week he took that to a new level. In fact, team owner John Creedon, Jr. was so impressed that after last night’s game he texted McDermott’s college coach, former Knights and Worcester Bravehearts manager J.P. Pyne, now the head guy at prestigious Amherst College.

“I texted J.P. Pyne and I said ‘Thank you for sending us McDermott, he’s a special player’,” Creedon said. “He is a special player.”

“Our team played awesome, pitchers pitched amazing, and for myself, I was seeing the ball really well, which helps,” McDermott said. “I’m thinking just base runners early. Get Wolffie up, he put a fantastic swing on it.”

And McDermott summed up the Knights perfectly.

“Just keep fighting, keep making noise, keep the energy up,” he said. “It helps everyone on the field to do the best they can.”

McDermott was right about the pitching, as Aiven Cabral and Nolan Lincoln had two strong semifinal starts, Nashua native Alex Meesig had a shutdown relief performance in Finals Game 2, and Concord’s Noah Wachter reached down and pulled out the stamina for a very good Game 3 start, his 5.2 innings his longest outing of the season as he was normally a reliever.

“McDermott’s just been a staple, same with Wolff,” Jackson said. “Staples for this team the whole season, they’ve been here the whole year. They’ve had their ups and downs, but when push comes to shove, they were up. They didn’t let the crowd dictate what they were going to do. They just stayed focused.”

And they escaped a one-out, bases loaded situation in the ninth with reliver Will Andrews on the mound. He induced a popup to the infield fringe at second – key because when it was first hit it looked like a fly to right that could tie the game – and then Knights killer Brian Schaub flew out to right.

Sighs of relief, and joy for the 60-70 or so Nashua fans who filled a bus for the trip up here.

“He told me ‘All I need is one inning,'” Jackson said. “I didn’t know what inning it would be.”

On the flip side, Vermont manager Pete Wilk opted to stick with Cameron, who had pitched the eighth, for the ninth, rather than go with George Goldstein, who was beaten in the ninth in Game 2.

“We felt we needed some velocity,” Wilk said. “George is more of a location-movement (pitcher). I had a choice between two All-Stars and they beat one of our best guys. I’m not regretting that decision.”

The last two games of the series typified Nashua’s roller coaster season.

“Up and down, up and down,” Jackson said. “I’ll take it every day.”

“One,” Creedon said, “for the ages.”

A special sixth.

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