Silver Knights manager Nick Guarino, shown during last year's preseason workouts, is focused on a better 2026 season for the Nashua Silver Knoghts. (Telegrap file photo by TOM KING)

NASHUA – The college baseball season is getting underway, and it’s got a different feel to it for Nashua Silver Knights manager Nick Guarino.

Guarino has spent the last couple of years honing his coaching craft on the coaching staff at Eastern Connecticut State.

Well, now he’s gone south for the winter – as in Southern Connecticut State, his alma mater, as assistant pitching coach.

The seeds were planted in August, and in the fall Guarino made the move.

“It’s been like a thing the last couple of years since I graduated from there, they always wanted me to come back,” Guarino said. “The money was never there the last couple of years. Eastern was a better situation at the time for me in terms of the money and having my own pitching group.”

Now, however, things had changed slightly, and the idea of working for the school he pitched for was increasingly appealing.

“I always wanted to go back at some point, and it’s the same coaching staff,” he said. “It’s fun, it ‘s going to be good.”

Plus, location, location, location. The school is 10 minutes from his home, instead of the hour 10 minute commute he used to have.

“It’s a better situation for me now,” he said.

His title is assistant pitching coach, but Guarino is basically a jack of all trades, also working with the catchers and outfielders.

“I think the biggest side of it is the recruiting side of it,” Guarino said, saying he’ll help out with recruiting, and keep in touch during the summer. He’s adding a different look to the recruiting side as head coach Tim Shea has been there 25 years and Ed Bethke a dozen. So Guarino will bring new ideas.

“Being a younger guy on the recruiting side to come in and help them out,” he said. “It’s going to be nice. They’re going to let me do whatever I want, they’re open to new ideas.”

Southern Connecticut State is beginning the season this weekend in Miami, Fla.

It will be a new chapter in Guarino’s baseball coaching career, just like last summer was when he managed the Silver Knights. The roster work is nearly complete and he likes what he and Cam Cook have put together.

“I think the mentality is and (Cook) probably told you the same thing is get guys who want to stay,” he said. “Last year we had 75-plus guys, then we had that three-week span when we had nobody, really. We had no pitching, we had a whole different lineup, picking up guys off the street, picking up a kid from the ticket booth, just trying whoever else wants to play baseball, bring them in.

“This year we have gotten word from the coaches, we have guys that want to be here and stay the whole year (summer). They’re like ‘Yeah, this guy will come here and stay with you, they won’t leave, my guys don’t leave summer ball programs. They stay the whole year whether they suck or whether they’re good. They’re going to stay and ride it out.’ We focused on that for sure. We bring in 30 guys, and say they don’t do hot. We know we have to ride it out and stick with what they got. But the goal obviously is to bring in some really good players who want to stay here.”

Guarino, as Cook said, have branched out in their roster building.

“Probably more out of state and out of region guys than we’ve had in the past,” Guarino said, lauding the front office’s and others’ work in getting host families. … We’re in a really good spot.”

Guarino says the Knights need to keep up with the FCBL trend.

“Vermont has guys from all over the place; Worcester has guys from all over the place,” Guarino said. “So I this year we wanted to get some guys from the Pennsylvania area, from the Maryland area, down there there’s guys who play quality baseball.”

He cited getting players from Millersville University in Pennsylvania, a unique spot when it comes to the FCBL.

“There’s no Millersville guys in the Futures League ever,” he said. “They also run one of the better pitching staffs in small college baseball in the country year in, year out. So we got two of their guys. Will they be studs? I don’t know, but I assume coming from that program they’re going to be pretty good and have a good basis in what needs to be done. They’re going to want to compete and want to be here.”

Guarino is a baseball guy through and through, it frustrated him last summer.

when players fell by the wayside, helping to lead to the team’s collapse.

“I’ll be way more happy and satisfied if we have the same year as last year but have the same team throughout,” he said. “Better than what I had to go through last year with the roster turnover. But I don’t think we’re going to have the same year as last year. That’s the hope.”

How long has it taken for Guarino to get over last summer, when the team had an above .500 record then lost 10 straight and completely collapsed, missing the playoffs for an unprecedented third straight season? It was his first season as manager.

“:No, I’m not,” Guarino said. “We (he and Cook) still talk about it. You want to come up here and win. It’s tough. We’re both competitors. The way it ended sucked. We were good in the beginning of the year. If we had the team we had in the first month and a half – at the end of the year, we (would have been) of the better teams in the league by far. I’m still not over it. I won’t be over it all year.”

Guarino says he learned a lot.

“The more you’re in the game, the more you’re going to learn and grow from it,” he said. “At Eastern, I had a lot of say and a lot of leeway with what I can do, and I told you I was never going to be uncomfortable doing what I was doing.

“When you’re in the game, you’re losing 14 or 15 games in a row, and I’m thinking, ‘What the hell can I do to turn this thing around?’ Sometimes there’s no answer for it.”

Guarino’s goal became to get everyone to come out and play hard every day. But he sensed a somewhat different vibe.

“I thought we still competed pretty well, the guys that showed up, guys that we had … at least they came and competed and guys were trying to win baseball games. It’s not like we had guys that mailed it in.”

So the challenge, Guarino said, was figuring out how “to get guys through that stuff, I think that was the learning curve.”

Silver Knights manager Nick Guarino talks with players postgame during last season. (Telegraph file photo by TOM KING)

The end of the year the Silver Knights won their final game in a walk-off at Holman Stadium on a Cole Patterson hit.

“It was kind of like coming full circle,” Guarino said. “It was a great way to end it. Guys bought in. Patterson stayed all year and he’s the guy who does it at the end. So it was good to have that momentum, a good building block for this year. Yes, it’s a different roster, but for the whole summer.”

The team did not bring back a single position player, but a handful of arms are back.

Guarino said it’s not realistic to think there won’t be some roster changes, but he’s ready for that. The theory?

“You’re a guy who’s going to start every game,” he said. “For the most part you’ll get four starts a week. If he hits a buck-20, he’s still going to play because there’s no one behind him; there’s only a couple of guys in that same area with him. We’re excited to see what it looks like.

“We’re changing the dynamic from previous years, the way it was evern before I got here. It’s a good way to do it. We have some guys we’re excited about too.”

The way the manager is excited about the next step in his collegiate coaching career.