New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
Williams’ wonder arm gets ‘Grandpa’ to NCAA tourney
In the joy of the Western New York afternoon, Tom Pardalis would look at Nicole Williams with a big smile and bigger respect. He did have one question.
“So what have you done today?”
Williams pitched Manhattan to a MAAC softball championship and its first NCAA Tournament appearance in 22 years.
Williams was named
Most Outstanding Player of the tournament.
She received her master’s degree, an MBA in organizations, markets and sustainability.
And, with the 6-3 victory over Canisius, Williams made sure her 71-year-old coach, the guy she calls “Grandpa,” would have at least one more game to coach.
Nicole Williams did plenty Saturday.
“What a phenomenal kid,” Pardalis said. “She gave everything she had.
She had nothing left.”
The Jaspers had been picked for fifth in the
MAAC preseason poll,
finished sixth yet with the lineup congealing after injuries and Williams hitting peak form, they eliminated Iona in a best-ofthree quarterfinal two weekends ago and knocked out Fairfield, Marist and Canisius in consecutive days.
“It was like the stars were all aligned,” said Pardalis, who lives in New Fairfield.
By the sixth inning of the championship, Williams — 5-0 in the tournament with a 1.78 ERA — was laboring.
The right-hander from Ansonia and St. Joseph
High of Trumbull had thrown 112 pitches and struck out 13 in a two-hit shutout of Fairfield on Thursday. On Friday, Williams went nine innings, struck out 12 and threw 127 pitches in the 2-1 extrainnings win over Marist.
Williams struck out only three Saturday, but she held strong without her best stuff before allowing two Canisius
runs in the sixth. Suddenly, a 4-1 lead was 4-3.
“I was gassed,” Williams said.
And why not? She threw 367 pitches in 48 hours, 128 in the championship.
“She was about dead,” Pardalis said.
He had a tough decision to make. Perhaps the toughest for a baseball or softball coach. Do you pull the tiring ace in a season-defining moment?
“Or do I let her gut it out?” Pardalis said. “Thank God for what happened next.”
In the top of the seventh, Marika Deemer hit a twoout, two-run homer to give Manhattan a three-run cushion.
“Made my decision a lot easier,” Pardalis said.
Williams pitched the bottom of the seventh.
“It was adrenaline that was pushing me through, so much adrenaline,” Williams said. “I always have it in the back of my mind: I know when I’m tired. I want the best for my team. So I try not to think about myself. But in
that moment, I wanted that win. I was going to give it my all.”
Line out to left. Ground out to Williams. Ground out to short. Six pitches. Three outs. MAAC champs. Dogpile.
“We were so excited,” Williams said. “We took so many pictures before we got on the bus. It was a hoot at the beginning of the ride. Then all we got tired.”
That happens over a 71⁄2-hour ride from Buffalo back to the Bronx campus. Interesting thoughts can arise, too. Williams and fellow graduate student Christine Gebhardt suddenly remembered they had been so zoned in on the game they forgot to watch the 3 p.m. virtual graduation ceremonies online.
“We’re like, ‘Oh, my God, we’re officially adults. We’re in the real world now,’ ” Williams said.
And the real world of your arm?
“My shoulder is a little rough, I’m not going to lie,” Williams said Sunday night after the ESPN selection show unveiled Manhattan playing at No. 6 Arkansas at the Fayetteville Regional on Friday. “I couldn’t really lift it up this morning. Our trainer worked on my arm the whole weekend. That’s what got me through it.”
During the fall of her junior year, Williams was doing rundowns indoors. Her foot got caught on the floor. She felt a snap. The ACL in her right knee was completely torn. She had surgery at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York. Williams rehabbed three times a week. She wanted badly to play. She wasn’t ready and, in six appearances, it became obvious. Over the summer, Williams trained especially
hard. She lost weight and got in her best shape. She felt stronger than ever entering her senior year.
COVID had other ideas. “I felt shorted,” said Williams, who had been the
2017 MAAC Rookie of the Year. “I wanted to finish my college career strong. Also, a big thing for me is, I play for my mom. I didn’t want to go out without her seeing me play anymore.”
Williams completed her bachelor’s degree in marketing and decided to play the extra year allowed by the NCAA because of the pandemic.
Lynda Williams was the one who got her daughter into softball. Nicole started when she was 7. Nicole found the game boring. Lynda convinced her to give softball another shot. Lynda coached her. She brought her to every pitching lesson. She never missed a game.
“My mom has been there for me my whole career,” Nicole said. “She’s a big part of why I love this sport.
She’s the reason I kept playing. I didn’t fully have an expectation of winning the MAAC championship. It’s a great thing to do, but I just wanted to be able to play, not just for myself but for her.”
After she gutted it out, after the dogpile, after she threw 367 pitches in three days, Nicole Williams looked up in the stands in Buffalo.
“My mom was crying,” Williams said. “Knowing that I made her proud made it all worth it.”
Pardalis, who will retire at the end of the season, calls Williams his safety net. The Jaspers are 22-14 overall. They are 13-2 when she pitches.
“We can always count on Nicole,” he said. “She did struggle at the beginning of
the year because she struggled with her control. The last three weeks all she did was throw strikes. She got better and more confident every game.”
As a sophomore, Williams held Arkansas to two runs through four innings before getting chased in the fifth in what became a 9-1 loss on a trip to Florida. The Razorbacks have out-homered teams 89-32, this year. Braxton Burnside is second in the nation with 24.
Obviously, there’s a difference between SEC schools giving 12 scholarships and Manhattan giving seven.
“I’m so proud of these kids, “Pardalis said. “I was sitting there on the bucket the other day, just reflecting. Watching them communicate so well, caring about each other, the coaches didn’t have to say a word. Just took it all in.”
“Coach P is very big in letting you have your own life, letting school come first,” said Williams, named multiple times to the MAAC All-Academic team. “School first, student before athlete; it was a big thing for me. A big reason I came to Manhattan.”
Pardalis’ first job coaching was freshman football and junior varsity baseball at New Fairfield High. Over nearly a half-century, he assisted with Western Connecticut softball and got to the NCAA DIII tournament. He assisted with Marist for three seasons and got to the DI tournament. He coached New Fairfield High softball, won the state title in 1999. Coached three PONY teams to the nationals. He was the Danbury boys’ varsity basketball coach from 19962009. He assisted with Western Connecticut men’s basketball when it got to the 1996 NCAA Tournament.
“Lots of places, lots of sports,” he said.
Pardalis took the job at Manhattan after his New Fairfield player Anna Gallacher asked him to write a letter of recommendation to be a walk-on. At the end of the summer, she said, “Coach, let’s go to school together. Manhattan is looking for a softball coach.”
Pardalis was ready to go to Ocean City for vacation. He called former Manhattan AD Bob Byrnes, who told him the job posting was closing that afternoon. Could he come down for an interview? They spent two hours together. By the time he had arrived back in Connecticut, Pardalis had been offered the job. After 37 years and two weeks, he no longer was a physical education teacher.
The Jaspers won 30 games in 2016 and a program-record 34 in 2017. Along the way, Pardalis continued to recruit Connecticut kids and he found three accomplished ones at St. Joe’s in Jenn Vazquez, Lauren Pitney and Williams. Not until Saturday, however, did he advance to the Division I NCAA Tournament as a head coach.
“I’m so happy for him,” Williams said. “Coach P is like a grandpa. We joke around every day. It makes it fun.”
Tom Pardalis said he’s retiring to have fun with his grandkids. Nicole Williams is continuing an internship that is leading to a marketing job with Viral Solutions.
First, they have at least one more game to play. You know who the starting pitcher is.