Nashua Silver Knights second baseman Noah Lucier looks to fire to first to complete a double play after forcing Vermont's Noah Grant at second duirng Tuesday night's FCBL game at Holman Stadium. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

NASHUA – The Futures Collegiate Baseball League handed out its Player of the Night award per usual on Tuesday night.

Vermont’s Andrew Bergeron didn’t win it, but maybe he should have.

All the Georgetown sophomore and Lake Monsters center fielder did was homer for the go-ahead run, make a great diving catch leading to a potential rally killing double play, and walked and scored an insurance run after stealing second and third in his team’s 5-3 win over the Nashua Silver Knights at Holman Stadium.

Ouch. The 5-11 Knights rallied from a 3-0 deficit to tie the game in the fifth on Connor Hujsak’s – familiar name, Nashua High School and Iowa football fans? – RBI single.

The problem was the Knights only had four hits.

“They got the big hit,” Silver Knights manager Kyle Jackson said. “Things need to change with the pitching. I think the bats will come along. I think this will be a good week for the guys to get a feel for the league and live pitching.”

Jackson got the good and the bad from starter Jake Thibault, who gave him six full innings, five of them shutout. But the second was his lone blemish, as he gave up an 0-2 two run double to Kansas State’s Daniel Carinci and RBI single the opposite way to Tom Vesosky.

“Not a pitch you want to give a hit on when you go 0-2,” Jackson said. “JT gave a great outing (six hits, no walks, eight strikeouts) giving us six, kept us in the game.”

The bats did help at one point, as native Nashuan Nick Perkins singled off Vermont starter and former Silver Knight Pat Harrington of Bedford and Dylan Sullivan followed with a long home run over the Budweiser sign in right center that cut the deficit to 3-2.

New arrival from VCU, shortstop Hujsak of Goffstown – he is the son of former Nashua football standout and Iowa punter Jim Hujsak – singled off Monsters reliever Tyler Fagler after Fagler plunked Logan Ott and walked Kyle Hannon to knot things at 3.

In the sixth, Nashua’s Nat Goranson walked with one out. Noah Lucier then lined a ball to center that Bergeron dove and barely caught. He then doubled off Goranson, who was steps away from second when the play was made. Jackson went out to argue.

“Oh he caught it,” he said. “I just thought the umpire was a little late with his call, and the umpire was hung out to dry. … Just one of those things.”

Then the Silver Knights bullpen let them down in two tough ways. First, in the seventh, right after his big catch, Bergeron lofted Tristan Corcoran’s first pitch in to the picnic area in left to give Vermont (9-7) the 4-3 lead.

“It was a good pitch,” Jackson said. “He just got the head (of the bat) out on it.”

Then Bergeron worked a leadoff walk of Knights reliever Liam Eliot in the ninth, stole second, third and then was squeezed home by Vesosky.

“It’s tough when you bring in a reliever in the ninth and they walk,” Jackson said. “And he didn’t hold the runner on, we gave him third right away. We’ve had this talk before, you don’t hold runners, they’re going to run all over you.”

The problem now, though, is with Nashua not hitting, the Knights pitchers may feel they need to make the perfect pitch.

“They’ll start to have a better approach, hopefully,” Jackson said. “I level with the guys. As a former pitcher, I know, if the guys aren’t hitting and it’s been a long stretch, it’s ‘I don’t want to fail, I don’t want to fail, I want to make the perfect pitch’ and you get out of your comfort zone.

“Same thing with the hitters. They’re pressing, it’s ‘I forgot, I can go the other way.”

By the end of the week, position players Alex Kennedy (SNHU) and Jackson Linn (Tulane) will arrive along with pitcher Griffin Young (Wheaton). But Jackson was clear with his players after.

“I told these guys, this is the team now,” he said. “I’m confident.”

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Nashua makes its first trip to Norwich tonight (7 p.m.) and then the Knights are home on Thursday vs. Pittsfield and Friday vs. Vermont again….

The Lake Monsters are likely – at least it would make sense – on a true road trip, as they are at Worcester tonight and Thursday, then stop in Nashua before heading home. However, they’re back here next Tuesday-Wednesday.

The Knights don’t go to Burlington until July 5-6.

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