An incredibly happy group of Silver Knights players celebrate their recent Futures Collegiate League championship, won in a classic final game in Burlington, Vt. It was the franchise's sixth FCBL title in the league's 12 years. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

NASHUA – It was back in mid-June, and there was a sense of gloom around a franchise that has provided so much fun over the last 12 years.

The Silver Knights were 4-13, coming off a rough 2021 season in which they missed the Futures Collegiate Baseball League playoffs for the first time in their brief but impressive history.

The last thing anyone was thinking then was a sixth championship. General manager Cam Cook was fearing the worst.

“I was hoping I wasn’t going to lose my job,” he said, as he and Jackson spent the first part of the offseason (when players are signed) to try and right the wrongs of 2021 with more experience and savvy.

There’s a fine line generally speaking in collegiate summer baseball between winning and simply giving players a chance to swing the wooden bats,adjust, and get some work in before they return to their colleges.

But in the FCBL, the players are treated my most franchises like pros, because the franchises exist to make money, unlike some other leagues. A non-competitive, non-entertaining losing team will almost certainly cost at the gate.

A brief five game winning streak, once some more of the roster arrived from their college and high school (seniors headed to college) seasons, helped avert complete disaster. But, on June 28, a visibly disinterested Knights team lost the first game of a doubleheader to Worcester 11-1 in the late afternoon hot sun at Holman Stadium, a game so poorly played the 10-run mercy rule was as merciful for the few spectators as well as the players.

After the first game of a doubleheader, usually players retreat to the locker room for a breather and a snack, the manager heads to his office to start making the lineup out for the second game while the grounds crew gets the field ready for the nightcap. But this time, following that game, with another yet to be played, Silver Knights manager Kyle Jackson knew that something had to change the mindset, as the club was settling in to a mentality that would surely have had them scuffle through another losing summer.

He simply told them either they could enjoy the summer, just come to the park, play baseball and not worry about winning or losing – or they could decide to be a competitive team with the goal of winning every time they ook the field.

The result? A nine-game winning streak with three games that were perhaps the most important – three wins, the first two back-to-back, at the Vermont Lakes Monsters’ Centennial Field, 9-3 and 8-7. Why? Because they snapped a 14-game losing streak to who were then the defending league champions, dating back to last season.

Not only did they show they could finally beat Vermont, it showed they could beat them in Burlington.

Which is exactly what they did last Friday night, 6-5, to capture the franchise’s sixth championship in 12 years. Something that was clearly unthinkable in late June.

“I felt good when (the finals opponent) was going to be Vermont because we took two during the season here back-to-back,” Jackson said. “There was no stigma with this team that ‘We can’t win here.’ We win those back to back, and that’s a very tough team. Just like us, they don’t quit.”

“Honest to God, on paper, are they the best team against this Vermont team?” Cook said. “Absolutely not. They wanted it more. Vermont, they expected it. And we wanted it. And that’s really the difference.”

Jackson had to manipulate things all season with injuries, players needing to attend college functions, etc. The Knights lost one of their better players, infielder Carmello Musacchia to injury, and saw their best starter, Concord’s Jonah Wachter, shut down for the summer due to innings by his coaches at Tulane University.

Starting shortstop Brady Desjardins was lost to injury late, but returned to play in the postseason. His replacement, Brady O’Brien, played well, signed after his NECBL season ended.

But ironically, it was Jonah Wachter’s brother, Noah, a tall lefty, who set the tone for Nashua’s title night. The Knights had a bevvy of top starters through much of the season – perhaps during one stretch from late June through mid-July Jackson had the best group in recent years. But one by one they fell by the wayside, and Jackson used his remaining best two to sweep New Britain in the semis, and basically had to use relievers through most if not all of the title series.

Wachter had hit a low point when he came in to a game back in late June to try and close out a 1-0 lead, as regular closer George Welch was unable to pitch. Vemont won the game 5-1, but Wachter bounced back in subsequent appearances, “tired of the way I was pitching.”

And in the finals he pitched the longest he had gone all summer, and left with the lead, tiring in the sixth and Vermont then grabbed the lead. He told Jackson he would go as long as needed.

Who would’ve thought?

“Not me,” Jackson said. “Credit to Walker for what he did. He’s never gone higher than that. And to do that in Game 3 of the championship?”

That’s why Jackson had a name for his team.

“I call my team The Misfits,” he said. “They don’t belong. But they proved (last Friday) they belonged on top.”

Londonderry’s Nolan Lincoln was grinning from ear to ear afterward, and shouted out, “Who believed we could do it? Only us.”

•••

STRONG PLAYOFF START

Nashua may have sent a message, finishing as the third seed, in its first game of the playoffs. Finals MVP Jack McDermott hit two homers and Aiven Cabral, pride of St. Mary’s of Lynn and Northeastern-bound, pitched his best game of the season in an 11-3 drubbing of the New Britain Bees in front of a loud crowd at New Britain (Conn.) Stadium after waiting during an hour delay.

Then they returned to Holman for an incredibly pitched 3-0 win in Game 2, as starter Nolan Lincoln (six innings) and reliever Will Andrews (three) put on a clinic.

But then the Knights were seemingly out of pitching. Jackson had to go with a bevy of relievers in a 12-0 loss, and had to use his bullpen for all of Game 2 again after starter Brock Pare struggled in the first inning.

In these playoffs historically for Nashua,someone always unexpectedly emerges, and that someone was Nashua North alum Alex Meesig, who joined the team late, was impressive in a couple of brief outings, and then was summoned in the third inning of Thursday’s Game 2 at Holman Stadium with Nashua needing to somehow rally from an early 4-0 deficit to keep its season alive.

Meesing was dominant, 4.2 frames of one-hit, four-strikeout scoreless relief. As his high school coach, North’s Zach Harris, would say the next day, “He missed his mound.”

“He saved our season,” Jackson said.

And McDermott, the Finals MVP, extended it officially with a walk-off hit to the right-center field wall that plated Brady Desjardins with the game-winner. O’Brien, meanwhile, walked on a close 3-2 pitch from Vermont closer and losing pitcher George Goldstein that had the reliever shouting at home plate umpire Steve Sanderson as he was walking off the mound. It would be back to Burlington, Vt. and its loud, near 3,000 Centennial for a championship-deciding Game 3.

THE GAME FOR THE AGES

In many ways, the championship game was a reflection of the season. Up and down, roller coaster. Nashua led 1-0, trailed 3-1, grabbed a 4-3 lead on McDermott’s two-run homer, gave up the lead in the sixth on Lake Monster Connor Bowman’s two run single through the infield, the one-out ninth inning double by McDermott and subsequent two-run homer by Kyle Wolff, and Will Andrews retiring the two toughest Vermont hitters, Jimmy Evans and Brian Schaub, on a pop up and fly out to send the Knights running onto the field in celebration. Remember, they were two outs away from being a nice try/good effort runnerup.

“(Reliever Cole) Glassburn gives up a chopper (for two runs and 5-4 Vermont lead) and it was like, ‘All right, we’ll be OK,'” Jackson said. “I had a feeling in the ninth that if we could just get one runner on, this team will do it. They’ll give me another heart attack, and I’ll be weak in the knees.

“And Andrews had never pitched that many innings (5.2) in a week before, and he told me he had one inning.”

The right inning.

The hitters coming up in the ninth for Nashua dictated everything. McDermott was having an MVP post season, and Wolff in those back-to-back games at the end of June went a combined 6 for 7 with two homers and six RBIs.

“Jack had a helluva at-bat,” Wolff said. “And I think that startled him a little bit. He was so around the zone, so locked in, he was throwing strikes, so you just have to swing the bat.”

“I just tried to stay calm,” McDermott said. “The crowd was going crazy.”

Wolff didn’t wait long, just the next pitch, to loft a ball deep into the night that produced a championship, one that Jackson said “He’ll remember for the rest of his life.”

“We got down 12-0 in the first game, and we knew all the pressure was on Vermont,” Wolff said. “They had to come us, come to our field (Holman) and come here again and in a Game 3 anything can happen. But they played a helluva series.”

But just a hair short of the series played by Nashua. Still, a classic game, one that Vermont manager Pete Wilk was marvelling at afterward, even in defeat. He is a veteran college coach, and likely coached in a lot of these, right?

“Not like that,” Wilk said.

“We made some magic happen,” Wolff said. “We did it, and it feels really good.”

And will for the next 10 months.