Knights

Thursday, July 20, 2023

By: Dan Allison | Silver Knights media relations

Nashua returned to Holman Stadium after two days on the road, set to face their Wednesday opposition for back-to-back nights in the Brockton Rox. While their opponent remained the same, Thursday night's ballgame would be completely flipped from the night prior. Nashua won a scrappy 1-0 ballgame behind their starter in Northeastern’s Michael Gemma’s six scoreless innings. 

After nine runs combined between the two teams on Wednesday, the Knights and Rox offenses went quiet. Both starters would deliver with Framingham State’s Jimmy Gilleran going seven scoreless against Gemma’s six. 

Rhode Island’s Brandon Hsu and Northeastern’s Ryan Griffin carried the torch after Gemma, combining for three innings of scoreless ball on only two hits. With their pitching staff doing their job, it was up to the Nashua offense to deliver. 

In the eighth, New England’s Luca Giallongo would step into the box. Nashua, who only had three hits on the night at that point, looked to have better luck against Brockton’s new arm out of the ‘pen in Stonehill’s Logan Lawrence.

On the third pitch of the at-bat, Giallongo would sneak one past the left side of the infield for a leadoff single. As Amherst’s Jack McDermott followed, McDermott dropped down a textbook bunt to move Giallongo into scoring position.

As the crowd grew louder with the go-ahead run just 180 feet away, the moment started to get a bit too big for Lawrence. After three straight balls to Eastern Nazarene’s Shane McNamara, Lawrence would get called for a balk to allow Giallongo to move to third.

Following the balk, McNamara would sky one to center field that was deep enough for Giallongo to score. Holman erupted and just like that, Nashua had their first lead of the ballgame.

Griffin, who just tossed an excellent eighth, came back on to try and close it out in the ninth. Griffin would stay hot with two strikeouts in the frame, ending it off with a fly out to left field for his first win of the season.

Behind a rocking crowd, Nashua’s Thursday win marks back-to-back taken from the Rox with a doubleheader set for Friday in Pittsfield. Nashua and the Suns are set for 5:35 PM first pitch for game one on Friday.