Pardi brings energy to ASU water polo
Petra Pardi has hops, which is surprising for someone who has spent most of her life in the water. When anyone on the Arizona State women’s water polo team scores, she’s the first person off the bench and up in the air.
“Every time someone scores, it doesn’t matter who it is, she’s gonna jump and scream and fist bump and hug you,” senior defender Lara Kiss said after a recent practice. “I swear I have never had a coach scream as loud as she screams whenever we score.”
Pardi is just beginning her first season as head coach and has already bumped the program from No. 10 to No. 7 in the Collegiate Water Polo Association poll following the team’s Feb. 5 upset of thenNo. 6 Michigan, who had previously dealt the Sun Devils their first loss of the season. Pardi’s squad is 5-3 through the first two tournaments of the season, but her most important victory so far has been winning the support of her team and her staff.
“This is her first season as the head coach, but I think she’s doing an amazing job,” junior attacker Luca Petovary said. “The whole atmosphere around the pool completely changed. People are actually coming to games smiling and happy. We are here to play water polo and we want to enjoy it and this is the first year that we do enjoy it.”
Kiss and Petovary credit Pardi, a fellow Hungarian, with bringing them to Tempe. Both have been consistent starters for the Sun Devils. Kiss led the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation conference in field blocks (23) and the team in steals (37) at the end of the 2022 season.
“She is the reason I’m here,” Kiss said. “I feel like her kindness and honesty were the main factors. I chose ASU because I was looking for a coach who honestly tells me what the deal is every day and that was her from Day One.”
Pardi started her career as a Sun Devil in 2011, and by the time she graduated in 2015 she had cemented her name in program history. She is sixth all-time with 157 goals scored and 10th in assists with 71.
Just a year after graduation, Pardi returned to the program as a graduate assistant coach and was promoted to assistant coach in 2018.
She was named interim head coach for the final three games of the 2022 season after Todd Clapper stepped down for unspecified reasons.
Nearly 12 years after coming to Tempe, Pardi says she is enjoying a career she never envisioned.
“It’s amazing to think back to the 18-year-old that showed up on this pool deck for the first practice,” Pardi said. “I didn’t even think I wanted to be a coach at the time. But then, as the years were
counting down, and the more I thought to myself ‘I’m eventually gonna have to pack up from here and find the next chapter of my life,’ the more I thought that I wasn’t ready to be done with water polo.”
Luckily, Pardi is nowhere near being done with the sport. She has just started the process of experimenting in her new role with her biggest change so far, implementing a European style of movement-based play. Instead of having a designated hole set and hole defender, Pardi is rotating her players in and out of both positions.
“We are doing a lot of drives on offense and motion attacks,” Petovary said. “That’s a huge change because we didn’t really move last year. Last year we really played a stationary center and we just played around her, but now we are playing with the centers in motion.”
Though it’s a tiring game plan, the change has been more than welcome for Kiss and Petovary, who find the strategy more suited to their skill set. Petovary has already set a new careerhigh in goals with six in ASU’s win over Biola on Jan. 14.
Kiss and Petovary say they have also enjoyed how open Pardi is to collaboration with her players and staff.
Hearing from different perspectives is something Pardi prioritized the moment she became head coach. With such a young team — half the players are in their first or second year with the program — there are many possible directions to take and even more decisions to make.
“I always try, whether it’s a big decision or a small decision, to take my time to evaluate it from as many different angles and lenses as I possibly can,” Pardi said, “to see how it impacts maybe just that one individual, how it impacts the team as a whole and how it impacts our future.”
With the strategy changes and the recruiting process underway, Pardi has already made a lot of decisions, and her team is jumping up to cheer her on.
Arizona State is off until Feb. 24-26 when it plays in the Barbara Kalbus Invitational at Irvine, Calif.