Telegraph photo by TOM KING Nashua's Nick Shumski waits for the ball to try to tag out Worcester's Trevor Johnson during a game earlier this season. The two teams square off in Game 1 of the FCBL Finals tonight at 7 p.m. at Holman Stadium.

NASHUA – The last lap of the Nashua Silver Knights’ Drive for Five is finally here.

The long-awaited best-of-three Futures Collegiate Baseball League Finals series between the second seed Knights and top seed Worcester Bravehearts begins tonight at 7 at Holman Stadium.

Worcester will be the home team for Game 1 and, if necessary, a deciding Game 3 on Saturday at 6 p.m. Nashua will be the home team for Game 2 on Friday, also at 6. All the games are here so as to allow for Worcester fans to attend, as no fans are allowed in Massachusetts, and ironically both teams are owned by Worcester businessman John Creedon, Jr.

Worcester, since it came into the league seven years ago, has never not made the finals.Nashua, meanwhile, is seeking its fifth title. The two franchises, with separate ownership back then, met in the finals in 2016 and 2017 with Nashua sweeping both series. Worcester won the title last year over Bristol, which is no longer in the league.

And Silver Knights manager Kyle Jackson knows exactly what his team has to to do to attain it.

“We’re going to have to play clean baseball,” he said. “We’re number one in fielding percentage, but we’ve just got to protect the ball. On defense we have to make the right throws, protect the cuts (cutoffs), just not give them the opportunity.

“And limit the big innings. I think that’s hurt us in the last week. In order to beat Worcester, they have a lot of guys that can hit singles. They have (catcher Ben) Rice that’s the (FCBL) MVP who can leave the ballpark or hit a double in the gap, especially with all the games here. If we can limit how many people are on base when he comes up, I think that’s going to give us a great opportunity against Worcester.”

Going into Wednesday night’s regular season finale, Rice was hitting .350 with a league best 11 homers plus 27 RBIs, slugging .683 with an OPS of 1.150

Offensively, the Silver Knights suffered a jolt when top home run and RBI man Dom Keegan has to leave for Vanderbilt. Kyle Bouchard, who last year hung out in Brockton as the clubbie while waiting for a chance to make the Rox roster that never came, was signed by Nashua two weeks ago and has provided some of that power with two homers and six RBIs in seven games, hitting .400.

John Mead is hitting .351 with a .956 OPS and is slugging .514. Nashua right fielder Jared Dupere was hitting .320 going into Wednesday night’s regular season finale at Westfield, starting to recover from a slump but still has an OPS of 1.024. Catcher-outfielder Dylan Jones was at .325 and infielder Max Viera at .338.

But, as always, it will come down to pitching. Nashua sends righty Griffin Young (3-2, 1.75) to the mound tonight, with lefty Nick Guarino (4-0, 1.12) in Game 2 on Friday.

Worcester is likely to start righty Cole Chudoba (3-2, 3.60) tonight and fellow righty Angelo Baez (3-1, 1.28) in Game 2. Baez had a dominating performance over Nashua at Holman earlier in the season.

Chudoba pitched vs. Nashua last week, but Worcester hasn’t seen Young with the exception of one brief relief appearance early in the season.

“Now we’ve seen him, it’ll be our second time seeing him,” Jackson said. “Our hitters, the second time around, know what they’re going to get, so there’s no surprise with that. If he pitches well he pitches well.

“But they don’t know what they’re going to get with Young coming at them. Worcester, with their pitching, they have a lot of the same kids they had last year. They’re resilient like us. They’re a slap team, they take advantage of other team’s errors. When they get runners on, they’re going to move them over, and they’re going to put the ball in play. I think they’re last in the league in strikeouts, they put the ball in play to the point of me saying we have to protect the ball.”

Of course, there’s no one except Jackson, who was a pitching coach then, in the Nashua dugout when the team last won a title in 2017.

“They’re excited to have an opportunity, a lot of them have never had the opportunity,” Jackson said, adding that a few players from teams two years ago and last year who faltered in the first round and are on the roster now are extremely hungry.

“The guys that are returning want this. They’re hungry for it.”

The idea of having the entire series at Holman was bandied about last week because Worcester, temporarily playing at Leominster’s Doyle Field, couldn’t really have many fans (it’s part of a public park so some could trickle in). Plus Doyle isn’t exactly a title series caliber facility.

Even though it will be a visiting team in potentially two games, Nashua gets a bit of an edge.

“I would say comfort,” Jackson said. “You’re not getting on a bus, traveling an hour to Leominster (Mass.). We’ve played well at home. We’ve had a bunch of walk-offs. We’ve had close games, won ’em and lost ’em. But I think the comfort level for these guys going in, we don’t have to go anywhere.

“We’re going to win it or lose it at this field. We started it here, let’s finish it here.”

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The Silver Knights captured their regular season finale on Wednesday night, 4-3 over the host Westfield Starfires to finish their schedule at 23-16.

Jack Arend was the story on the night as the regular catcher played eight positions in the field and DH’d, going 3 for 4 with three RBIs. Mike Rounds got the win despite allowing a run on two hits in two-thirds of an inning in relief.

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