Mills homers for third time in four games; Starfires drop two in Nashua

NASHUA, N.H. – Reigning FCBL Player of the Week Griffin Mills cranked out his third home run in four games, but the Nashua Silver Knights’ offense was too much as the Westfield Starfires dropped both games of a doubleheader Tuesday at Holman Stadium.

The Starfires drop to 8-21-1 on the year while the Silver Knights hold a 16-14 record.

The Silver Knights offense showed up right from the get go in the first two innings of game one. In the first, Nashua opened the scoring with two walks and a single, then got their second run on a sacrifice fly a couple of batters after.

In the second, the first five Silver Knights reached base with a walk, three singles, and a double as part of a four-run inning, and Nashua was out on top 6-0 after two innings.

The Starfires were able to get some action on the bases in the third, starting with Ohio Bobcat Caleb Karll reaching on an error, Brown Bear Alex Benevento reaching on a single, and Cornell’s Ryan Dillon drawing a free pass with a walk.

Boston College’s Ben Williams was next up, and the patient hitter from Hanover, New Hampshire, got the Starfires on the board with a walk. Williams’s teammate at Boston College, John Mass, then hit a high ground ball about a third of the way down the first base line. The Nashua pitcher, Tommy Flaherty, picked it up and threw to first on the run, but the ball got into right field, sending two more Starfires home.

Northeastern’s Anthony Ruggiero later got another runner home with a groundball to second, and the Starfires were down just 6-4 after their four-spot in the third.

However, the Silver Knights’ continued to rack up the runs, scoring three more times in the fifth and then two more in the sixth for an 11-4 lead.

The Starfires got a single from Mills in the fifth, and then in the sixth, North Florida’s Seth Alford and Karll got on with a hit-by-pitch and a walk, respectively, but despite a passed ball included in that inning, the Starfires couldn’t capitalize on the two runners in scoring position and remained at four runs.

The Silver Knights set down the side in order at the top of the seventh to win the front end of the doubleheader by a score of 11-4.

The nightcap started up with a bang as leadoff hitter Mills scalded a ball over the left-center fence on the second pitch of the game. The Northwestern Wildcat has now taken the team lead in round trippers with his third homer in his past four games.

In the bottom of the first, the Silver Knights stayed hot offensively, beginning their half of the inning with two singles and a walk to juice the bases. Starfires starter Greg Strite out of Wheaton College then got a double play, but the tying run scored in the process. Nashua went on to score another run with a base hit, and the one-run lead was swapped in favour of the Silver Knights.

In the third inning, the rain started to come down hard, and a rain delay ensued in the middle of Jack Taxdahl’s at-bat.

After a nearly-hour long rain delay in the third, the skies cleared enough for the game to resume. Strite returned to the mound, but the Silver Knights tagged him once again.

An error, a walk, and a wild pitch put runners on second and third. Strite went on to get a big strikeout to leave those two runners in place and get the second out of the inning, but then Nashua went on to do some serious damage with two outs.

The next five batters reached with two batters plunked, a walk, and a pair of two-out, two-run singles, and the Silver Knights quintupled their lead up to 6-1.

The score stayed at 6-1 until the top of the sixth, where the Starfires got things going with two outs. Four straight baserunners reached with two away, beginning with Ruggiero’s walk, a single by Keene State’s Jonathan Chatfield, then two more singles by Alford and Columbia’s Jimmy Chadwell, both of those resulting in a run, as the Starfires trimmed the Nashua lead to 6-3.

Westfield though could not keep the momentum as Nashua scored three runs on the Starfires bullpen in the bottom of the sixth in an inning where they had three singles and got four men on base with free passes.

Down 9-3 in the seventh, the Starfires had a bit of action on the bases with a Mills walk and Mass reaching on a kicked groundball by the Silver Knights, but Nashua ended the game with a strikeout to take both games of the twin bill.

The Starfires will next take a trip down to Connecticut to play against the New Britain Bees on Wednesday at 6:35 p.m.

Tickets to all Starfires home games can be found at www.westfieldstarfires.com.