The Nashua Silver Knights is a collegiate summer baseball team based in Nashua, New Hampshire. It is a charter member of the Futures Collegiate Baseball League (FCBL), a wood-bat league with a 64-game regular season comprising eight teams ranging from New Hampshire to western Connecticut. The team's home games are played at Holman Stadium in Nashua. The team is owned by John Creedon Jr.
The Silver Knights are one of the seven FCBL teams playing in a stadium that used to host professional baseball. The Silver Knights have won the FCBL Championship in six of the league's fourteen years of existence. They are the only remaining member of the original four FCBL teams.
Ownership The Silver Knights were a charter team of the FCBL, as Drew Weber, former owner of the Lowell Spinners, wanted to also operate a franchise in the New England Collegiate Baseball League. When this was not feasible, Weber and others created the FCBL. Chris Hall, who had been the General Manager of professional and collegiate teams in Nashua, became the league's commissioner.
The name Knights was chosen over three other club nominations by a vote of Nashua grade-school students. The club modified the winner to "Silver Knights" to avoid conflict with an existing amateur baseball team in the city.
In March 2019 the team was sold to John Creedon Jr, owner of the Worcester Bravehearts.
Results 2011 Mike Chambers was the first field manager, with B.J. Neverett and Tom Bowles assisting as coaches. The Silver Knights finished first in the regular season, with a 27–16 record. They defeated the Torrington Titans (25–17) in a best-of-three championship series. The Silver Knights drew an average of 869 spectators per game, far above initial expectations of 300–500 fans.
2012 The league expanded from four to nine teams. Neverett was promoted to field manager, with Bowles and J.P. Pyne assisting as coaches. The Silver Knights dominated the regular season with a 39–13 record. Then they swept through the Brockton Rox and North Shore Navigators to win their second consecutive FCBL Championship. PerfectGame.org named them the 26th best team in all of collegiate summer league baseball.
2013 Neverett was promoted to the front office as VP of Player Development. Pyne was promoted to field manager, with Bowles assisting as pitching coach. The regular-season record of 34–19 was one game behind the Martha's Vineyard Sharks (35–18). Both teams thus earned a bye from the "one-game play-in" instituted that year for the next-best four teams, and both teams won their best-of-three semifinal series in two games. But Martha's Vineyard, which had won 6 of the 7 regular-season contests against Nashua, won both games of the championship series.
2014 Ted Currle was hired as their field manager, with Jeff Dupont and Kyle Jackson assisting as coaches. Currle had managed the Martha's Vineyard Sharks in 2011 and was an assistant coach for the Brockton Rox in 2012 and 2013. The team spent most of the season around .500 and was one of four teams with similar records headed for the one-game play-in to the post-season. On August 8, the last day of the regular season, Nashua lost the right to host this play-in game, finishing the regular season at 28–26. Traveling to Torrington, Connecticut the next day, Nashua lost the play-in game in 11 innings.
2015 With the replacement of the Old Orchard Beach franchise by the Bristol Blues, Nashua moved to the East Division, joining in-state rival Seacoast Mavericks. The FCBL expanded the playoff format, allowing 8 of the 10 teams into the post-season but making the first two rounds a single game. The Silver Knights finished with a regular-season record of 28–28, fourth in the dominant East Division. They won the first-round playoff game at North Shore, but lost the second-round game the next day at Bristol. After the season, Drew Weber announced his intention to sell both the Silver Knights and the Spinners as a package.
2016 The FCBL returned to the 2014 format, in which only 6 of the 10 teams qualified for the post-season. B.J. Neverett moved out of the front office and back to the field as the team's manager and took the franchise to the FCBL championship. The Silver Knights dominated the East Division early, but eventually fell 2½ games behind Seacoast for the division title with a regular-season record of 34–21. This earned them the right to host the play-in game with Torrington, but the Silver Knights were seeded lower than their subsequent two opponents, each of which elected to start its best-of-three series at Nashua. Seacoast took the semifinal series to a full three games, each won by the visiting team. The Silver Knights won both games of the championship series against Worcester, now coached by J.P. Pyne.
Weber succeeded in selling the Spinners and took the Silver Knights off the market. Neverett's brother Tim became a radio broadcaster for the Boston Red Sox, and Silver Knights results were occasionally mentioned during those broadcasts. Tim's son Matt Neverett was one of the announcers of Silver Knights games on WSMN radio.
2017 The Silver Nights were one of several teams playing around the .500 mark. They finished the season at .491, an identical record to the Pittsfield Suns, which won the fourth seed and the right to host the one-game play-in game against Nashua on August 8 through the tie-breaker, a superior record against the other playoff teams. Fifth-seeded Nashua won the play-in game and swept the semifinals. The other finalist was the sixth-seeded Worcester Bravehearts, as all six playoff games in the first two rounds went to the lower-seeded team. Nashua elected to start the series at Worcester and won away and at home, repeating on August 12 as FCBL Champions. Cam Cook won the regular season batting title with an average of .397, he also broke the single season record for hits with 81. Ryan Sullivan won the MVP award for the Championship series.
2018 In the off-season, both General Manager Ronnie Wallace and Assistant GM Cheryl Lindner resigned within days of one another to take jobs outside baseball. Rick Muntean, a former General Manager of the Bristol Blues, was recruited as the new GM in Nashua. Manager B.J. Neverett took advantage of a liberalized FCBL rule allowing up to 5 "commits" (high-school graduates intending to play college baseball in the coming year), resulting in a distinctly younger team. A month into the season, the club signed power hitters who had excelled on nearby teams in the previous season, but the results were mixed. The league dropped from 9 to 7 teams, but the playoff rules continued to extend to the best 6. Nashua dropped out of contention, then surged in the last week to become the fifth seed. It lost the play-in game at Brockton.
2019 The FCBL started 2019 as a seven-team league again, as a new Westfield franchise balanced the defection of Martha's Vineyard to the NECBL. As the Seacoast Mavericks remained on hiatus, Nashua became the last of the four charter teams. Owner Drew Weber sold a minority stake to local businessmen and fired Muntean, appointing as co-General Managers team accountant Victoria Cookson and former mayoral candidate Michael Broderick. However, in March, Weber and the co-owners announced the sale of the club to John Creedon Jr., the owner of the Worcester Bravehearts. Creedon named Dave Pahucki the general manager in place of Weber's selections.
2020 The Futures League was one of the few leagues to play in the COVID-19 stricken summer. Playing a shortened season of 39 games, the Silver Knights went 23–16, finishing in 2nd place, ½ game behind the Worcester Bravehearts. The Silver Knights squared off against the Bravehearts in the championship for the third time in league history. After dropping game 1, the Silver Knights won games 2 and 3 to win their league leading 5th FCBL championship. Kyle Bouchard took home the MVP trophy.
2022 The Silver Knights won their sixth championship in 2022, recovering from a 4–12 start to earn the third seed in the playoffs. In the first round, Nashua swept the New Britain Bees. In the final series, the Knights faced the reigning FCBL champion Vermont Lake Monsters. Vermont hosted the opening game and won, 12–0. In Game Two in Nashua, the Knights overcame a 4–0 deficit and achieved a 6–5 victory. The rubber game, played in Vermont, was back-and-forth; Boston College's Kyle Wolff hit a two-run home run in the top of the ninth and the Knights won, 6–5. Amherst's Jack McDermott was the post-season MVP, hitting .400 with 3 HRs and 9 RBI.
Season results and attendance YearWinsLossesPercentagePlaceAttendancePlayoff winsPlayoff lossesPlayoff percentagePlayoff attendance2011 27 16 .628 1st 19,127 (1st of 4) 2 0 1.000 1,3312012 39 13 .750 1st 28,125 (3rd of 9) 4 0 1.000 2,2332013 34 19 .642 2nd 34,249 (2nd of 9) 2 2 .500 1,9642014 28 26 .519 3rd in West 35,760 (4th of 10) 0 1 .0002015 28 28 .500 4th in East 30,784 (5th of 10) 1 1 .5002016 34 21 .618 2nd in East 34,674 (5th of 10) 5 1 .833 4,1912017 26 27–1 .491* 5th 35,044 (4th of 9) 5 0 1.000 3,8262018 21 32 .396 5th 35,072 (2nd of 7) 0 1 .0002019 27 27 .500 6th 31,203 (4th of 7) 0 1 .0002020 23 16 .590 2nd 9,111 (2nd of 2) 2 1 .666 70820212739.4096th33,293 (4rd of 8)00N/AN/A Total 314 264 .543 326,442 21 8 .724 14,253 * The -1 reflects one loss in a "Home Run Derby", treated as half a win. The .491 is the "points percentage" (see the FCBL article). The Pittsfield Suns had the same regular-season record, but owned the tie-breaker and hosted the single play-in game as the 4th seed.
Post-season appearances YearPlay-in round**Semi-final round*FCBL championship2011Torrington TitansW (2–0)2012Brockton RoxW (2–0)North Shore NavigatorsW (2–0)2013 byeBrockton RoxW (2–0)Martha's Vineyard SharksL (0–2)2014Torrington TitansL (0–1)2015North Shore NavigatorsW (1–0)Bristol BluesL (0–1)2016Torrington TitansW (1–0)Seacoast MavericksW (2–1)Worcester BraveheartsW (2–0)2017Pittsfield SunsW (1–0)Bristol BluesW (2–0)Worcester BraveheartsW (2–0)2018Brockton RoxL (0–1)2019North Shore NavigatorsL (0–1)2020Worcester BraveheartsW (2–1)2021Did not qualify2022New Britain BeesW (2–0)Vermont Lake MonstersW (2–1) *The FCBL changed its postseason to a two-round format starting in the 2012 season. ** A one-game play-in round was added in the 2013 season and was discontinued in 2020.
Managers ManagerYearsWinsLossesPercentagePlayoff winsPlayoff lossesPlayoff percentageChampionshipsMike Chambers20112716.628201.0001B.J. Neverett2012; 16–19147120.550143.8243J.P. Pyne20133419.64222.5000Ted Currie2014–155654.50912.3330Kyle Jackson2020–Present5055.47621.6661
Awards YearAwardPlayer College 2011 Top Pitcher Eric Perrault Keene State 2011 Top Pro Prospect Eric Perrault Keene State 2011 Defensive Player of the Year Rob Benedict Wesley College 2011 Relief Pitcher of the Year Dylan Maki Northeastern University 2011 Batting Champion Logan Gillis Bentley University 2011 Manager of the Year Mike Chambers Franklin Pierce University 2012 Top Pro Prospect Chris Shaw Boston College 2012 Defensive Player of the Year Connor Lyons Northeastern University 2012 Manager of the Year B.J. Neverett 2013 Relief Pitcher of the Year Cody Rocha Assumption College 2013 Commissioner's Award Manny Cabral Texas Southern 2014 Commissioner's Award Matt Mottola UMass Lowell 2016 Most Valuable Player Mickey Gasper Bryant University 2016 Batting Champion Mickey Gasper Bryant University 2017 Batting Champion Cam Cook Nichols College 2017 Commissioner's Award Ryan Sullivan Southern New Hampshire University 2018 Pitcher of the Year Brandon Dufault Northeastern University2020Manager of the YearKyle Jackson
Team records Single season