Tom King

Welcome back, Futures Collegiate League playoffs, you were missed.

It was strange last summer to not see the Nashua Silver Knights in the FCBL tournament for the first time ever.Sure, if it had been six teams instead of four, they might have made it as they had in past years.

But right now, it matters little. The Knights are back in, and there will be at least one playoff game early next week at Holman Stadium after they wrap up the regular season at Holman Sunday vs. Worcester.

It’s fitting the regular season ends vs. the Bravehearts, who had a very slim chance to make it as of this writing, but it was likely not going to be in the cards. That’s because back on June 28, in the bright sunshine, the last thing you thought you were watching at Holman was a playoff team vs. the Bravehearts.

It was awful baseball. Nashua had started out 4-13 but then went on a run before falling back into its old ways to be 10-17 after getting mercy ruled by the ‘Hearts in the first game of a doubleheader.

Usually in between doubleheader games, the manager retreats to his office to fill out the lineup card for Game 2 and then catch a breather. But Knights skipper Kyle Jackson summoned all to a meeting.

Meetings are meetings, but this one hit home and likely turned the season around.

“I told them there’s two ways of going about this,” Jackson said. “Either you can enjoy the rest of the summer and play like crap, or you can choose to do something with it. So they have.”

Yes, the Knights chose option B, and deserve an A. The manager’s words hit home, and they went on a nine-game winning streak, starting with a win in the nightcap of that doubleheader. It was a sudden turnaround these eyes had never really seen before.

Amazing. Great job by Jackson.

“No one really realizes it, but this is his job,” Silver Knights reliever George Welch said. “He takes his whole summer away to work with us and try to make us better. We’ve got to give him our all. I felt at the beginning we were just having fun, getting to meet each other, and finally figured it out.”

That’s a mature look at how the players, instead of turning on their manager and even each other, embraced the challenge that was put in front of them. This is a very close knit team, even with all the additions and subtractions of the last couple of weeks.

They do love drama. Laughers have been few and far between. There have been some thrilling walk-offs, some tough losses the other way – most recently a 7-6, 2-1 doubleheader loss against a not very good Pittsfield Suns team early this past week. It hurt Nashua’s chances at home field in the first round.

How does a team turn itself around?

“I’ve been on the Silver Knights for three years and I knew we were going to be a second half team,” Welch said.

Oh, but there was more. The fact the Bravehearts did that to them hit a nerve.

“We have the same owners as Worcester, but that just makes us competitors to be the better one out of the ownership,” Welch said. “When they beat us that bad, we didn’t want to walk away with that.”

“The guys in the locker room, we’re all just starting to mesh well,” Knights infielder Ray Valdez said. “Before that Worcester game, we were all playing tight. Pressure. And now we’re looking better.”

“They jelled as a team,” Jackson said. “When you take 40 kids and you combine them and they don’t know each other, it takes a while, to find out what goal they want to (have), play for each other and just have fun.”

No matter what happens this upcoming week, it’s been an entertaining season with a lot of memorable Holman moments. The huge crowd for Education Day in June. The large throng in the stands for another morning game on July 4. The NESN game a couple of days earlier that holiday weekend in which Shane McNamara walked it off with a banger off the right field wall.

Perhaps Nashua can add more to the memory bank. Check the team, FCBL, and Telegraph websites for the exact when and where of the playoffs, and head on over the Holman.

The Silver Knights are back in the FCBL tournament, and suddenly all is right with the world in the summer of 2022.

Tom King can be reached at tking@nashuatelegraph.com, or on twitter @Telegraph _TomK.