Knights

By- Jake Loomis 

The Nashua Silver Knights hosted the Vermont Lake Monsters on Friday night in front of a big crowd at Holman Stadium. Friday night was also Kyle Jackson's bobblehead night. Jackson was the Knights's long-term manager and led the team to four championships. 

The Knights' starter in this one was Will Perkowski out of Dayton. He was huge, pitching three innings of no-hit ball while only allowing a run in his first start of the year. The Lake Monsters, however, did strike versus Perkowski, as a run reached on a passed ball in the third. 

The Lake Monsters starter Romel Roca was also great in this one as he pitched five innings, allowing no runs and keeping the Knights' offense at bay. The home side however would strike in a big way in the sixth as Roca left the game. The Knights rallied behind a River Hart HBP, a Tommy Ahlers single, and a Will Burns HBP. Hart would score on a wild pitch and Ahlers would be driven in by Jack Balcer. Peter Shrake would drive in the final run of the inning with an RBI single to right. 

The rest of this game was all Nashua as they put another run on the board in the seventh and their final two of the ballgame in the eighth. Tommy Ahlers was a catalyst in this one as he had three hits. Patrick Shrake also continued his hot start as he collected two more hits on the day. Jake Haarde also notched two hits in five at-bats. 

Manager Nick Guarino said postgame that it feels good winning one in front of the home crowd and it was a nice cherry on top of a firework night and having KJax back” he also mentioned that they are going to keep riding the lineup and the guys are fired up to play baseball here this summer. 

With the win, the Knights move to 2-1 on the year which makes them number one in the Futures League standings. It is an incredibly small sample size however if they can keep putting together great performances they will be unstoppable. Their next game is on the road versus the Norwich Sea Unicorns on Saturday.