Nashua starter Nick Guarino puts his all into a pitch in the first inning of Thursday night's Silver Knights season opener vs. Worcester at Holman Stadium. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

NASHUA – It was a night of celebration at Holman Stadium – until the very end.

That’s when the Nashua Silver Knights fell short of the team they vanquished in last year’s Futures Collegiate League Finals, the Worcester Bravehearts, 5-4, in the 2021 season opener at Holman Stadium before a crowd of 825.

Nashua’s Trey Ciulla-Hall was at third base with nobody out in the bottom of the ninth, but the Knights couldn’t push across the tying run as he was cut down at the plate trying to score on a grounder to short with the infield in.

“It’s early, these kids, they just want to win, he understood it was bad base running on his part,” Silver Knights manager Kyle Jackson said. “I told him if it gets through, you walk home. You force a bad throw, that’s fine. At the end of the day, you need a hit to get in.”

Ciula-Hall giveth, and he taketh away, as the Stonehill College standout hit a two-run homer over the wall in left-center on an 0-1 pitch in the first inning that gave Nashua a 2-0 lead.

His double leading off the bottom of the ninth was initially ruled a home run but clearly had bounced on the warning track and hit off the wall in left.

Both teams had five hits and incredibly Worcester survived five errors. But one thing Nashua couldn’t survive: a whopping 17 strikeouts on the part of its hitters.

“A lot of these kids have been out two or three weeks from live baseball, and now they’re seeing it,” Jackson said. “Same with the pitchers.”

Meanwhile, as Jackson said, the Knights couldn’t get the big hits when it counted. Two errors and two hits closed things to 4-3 in the seventh, and two walks and two fielder’s choices brought home a run to make it 5-4 in the eighth.

Meanwhile, Worcester took advantage of eleven free passes – eight walks, three hit batsmen. They tied the game in the fourth vs. Knights lefty starter Nick Guarino on an RBI single by Alex Neff and Jon Santucci sac fly, and took the lead when the Silver Knights bullpen struggled with control in the sixth, a bases loaded walk to Michael Chavez and ground ball double play that the Knights traded for a run.

But the game-winner came in the eighth when Shea Ryan walked the bases loaded and Chaves, Jr. lofted a sac fly to make it a 5-3 game.

“They had bases loaded, no outs in the sixth, bases loaded, no outs in the eighth,” Jackson said. “To limit it, to three runs, is pretty impressive for the pitchers.”

But the Knights pitchers, other than Guarino, didn’t have enough control.

“It’s the first game,” Jackson said. “I’m not looking too much into it. Last year, we started 0-3. The bats will come alive, the arms will get better.”