Knights

Tuesday, June 20, 2023

By: Dan Allison | Silver Knights media relations

Once on a hot streak, the Silver Knights quickly fell cold on Tuesday night in a 2-1 Home Run Derby loss to the Bravehearts. While the Knights were exquisite on the mound, a lifeless day at the plate allowed Worcester to escape Holman Stadium with the victory as UMass’s Dylan Vigue topped Colby’s Brady O’Brien 5-1 in the derby tiebreaker.

SNHU’s Will Perkowski was the lone highlight for the Knights, throwing six scoreless innings with six strikeouts in his second start of the summer. Opposite of him, Stony Brook’s JT Raab was dealing as well as Worcester’s starter.

Raab was mowing through the Nashua lineup until the third when WPI’s Kyle DeRoma led off the inning with a double to try and break the scoreless tie. With one out in the inning, New England College’s Luca Giallongo cashed in his third RBI of the season with a base knock to bring DeRoma home to make it 1-0 Nashua.

After Perkowski’s day was done, Nashua turned to their bullpen to try and get them to the finish line in this chess match of a ballgame. New England’s Corey O’Day made quick work of the Bravehearts in the seventh but ran into trouble in the eighth. Nashua would turn to SNHU’s George Welch to try and get out of the one-out bases loaded jam O’Day left him.

On his first batter, Welch would walk in the tying run. In a dire position, Welch kept his composure and locked down the rest of the inning with back-to-back strikeouts to end the frame.

Stuck at a 1-1 tie, the game moved to extras. Mount St. Marys’s Shane Wockley would lead off the bottom of the tenth with a walk, putting the winning run on first. With Dayton’s Zach Scott coming in to run for Wockley, Nashua worked Scott around the bases as he stood on third with two outs. UConn’s Ryan Juliano stepped into the box with the winning run 90 feet away but was unable to bring him home with a groundout to end the inning and force a derby tiebreaker.

Vigue, who already had pitched three scoreless innings for Worcester, was the selected hitter in the derby and did not disappoint for the Hearts. Vigue blasted five home runs, including three in a row, to give Worcester a lead that felt insurmountable to the Knights.

O’Brien gave his best hacks in his 10 outs but fell short of the tie with only one home run. Nashua now falls to 0-5 on the season to Worcester, and 6-17 overall. 

Looking to get back on track, Nashua will reopen a game already in progress in a makeup doubleheader vs the New Britain Bees. New Britain and Nashua’s two-game day is set for 3:00 and 6:00 PM first pitches.