After two seasons of being able to play in the background with little pressure, Nick Ziccardi knew he was coming back to the Hamilton West baseball team this year as a leader on a very young squad.
What the senior didn’t know is that he was also coming back as a starting pitcher.
“When they told me I was pitching, I just assumed it was maybe in relief or something,” Ziccardi said. “They told me I was going to be a starting pitcher and I did not expect that at all.”
But on a bright March day, coach Mark Pienciak asked Ziccardi to take the mound for an intrasquad game. Up that that point, his last regular pitching duties came in the Sunnybrae Little League.
“It was weird, it was so weird,” Ziccardi said. “At first, I thought there’s no way I’m pitching, I’ll just go have some fun on the mound. I think I struck out two of the three kids, and I was like, ‘Oh no, now they might use me.’”
He was correct.
“I knew he had the potential,” Pienciak said. “After that, I said I definitely have to look at him on the hill.”
And so, Ziccardi had yet another duty in this senior year.
During his first two varsity campaigns, Ziccardi batted .214 and .263 while playing third and first base. Hamilton won the NJSIAA Central Jersey Group III title his sophomore year and reached the CJ III semifinals last year.
There were leaders galore on those teams, such as Dan Garcia, Kevin Smiegocki, Gerry Gomez, Tino Malave, Alex Cruz and many others.
This year, it was Ziccardi and fellow senior Jon Iorio, who almost didn’t make it back due to a wrist injury. Those were the only experienced players on a roster that featured six freshmen.
Pienciak praised Iorio for leading by example and playing with pain, saying it served as inspiration to the younger players. The coach added that both his seniors were above reproach when it came to leadership skills.
“Nick and Jon both knew when it was time to turn it on and time to get that focus going,” Pienciak said. “They go about it the right way. They don’t really call guys out and embarrass guys. They just go up and explain it and say ‘This is the way it has to be done.’ I’m definitely sad that this is all over and those guys are moving forward to whatever it is they do. They’ll be extremely successful. They’ve been a great example for our program as to how you’re supposed to carry yourself.”
Ziccardi was a bit uncertain how he was going to pull off the role of elder statesman, but he was relieved to get Iorio as a partner.
“I put a lot of pressure on myself at the beginning,” Ziccardi said. “I was thinking, ‘If you don’t do good the whole team is going to go down with you because you’re supposed to be a leader this year.’ The group of kids I was with made me feel more comfortable about taking on a leadership role. It worked out well, and when I found out Jon could play, I was like, ‘Thank God.’ I was worried about taking on the whole thing myself.”
He was expected to do more than lead. Ziccardi also had to provide a big bat, which he did with an average of over .375 in Hamilton’s solid 11-11 season that included an appearance in the Central Jersey Group III tournament. He worked on his swing a lot and felt more comfortable at the plate.
Ziccardi also altered his batting style. He previously had a wide stance, lower to the ground, and was getting under pitches. This year, he straightened up and began getting on top of the ball more.
“I was hitting it hard, finding some holes,” Ziccardi said. “I felt more comfortable than I did in the past. I hit more line drives. It worked out well.”
It also helped having catcher Kyle Harrington behind him in the lineup. The junior was the Hornets top hitter at over .400 and provided Ziccardi with plenty of protection.
“I saw a lot of good pitches compared to what he saw,” Ziccardi said. “When they moved him into the leadoff spot for a couple games, I was like, ‘Now I’m going see all these curveballs and all these off-speed pitches.’ He was at leadoff for two games, and I’m like, ‘This ain’t gonna work.’”
Harrington eventually went back to third and Ziccardi began to get his fastballs to hit again. And the first baseman knew what to do with them. Pienciak called Ziccardi a “cog in the middle of the lineup.”
What made his hitting and leadership so impressive is that Ziccardi was doing it all while learning how to pitch. After throwing him several times in preseason, Pienciak was confident enough to give the 6-foot-3 right-hander a chance.
“We were light on arms,” the coach said. “Adam Drosos started off the year not being able to pitch because of his elbow. We lost another guy, so there were a lot of question marks where pitching was concerned. Nick hadn’t thrown in a while. But he has those nice long arms; he’s got the body of a pitcher. When he went out there in that intrasquad game, he was poised and composed. He kind of went after hitters. I liked his presence.”
Pienciak had so much confidence in him that he gave Ziccardi his first high school start against powerhouse archrival Steinert.
“We all know how that turned out,” Ziccardi said, laughing about the 13-3 loss he suffered in what could safely be termed a sub-par outing.
But Ziccardi gained from the experience.
“I learned how to throw an off-speed pitch,” he said. “I learned how to throw one for a strike. Against Steinert, I was throwing my slider. I couldn’t get that over at all. It was pretty much fastball, fastball, fastball. With a team like Steinert, you’re not going to get away with that.”
So Ziccardi and Pienciak went to work and the coach taught the hurler how to throw a split-fingered change-up. He went out in his next start and allowed four hits and two runs (both unearned) in 4.1 innings against Notre Dame, as the Hornets took a 4-2 upset victory.
“He went out, beat a good pitcher, had a better braking ball and that made his fastball faster,” Pienciak said. “We went back to the drawing board, he got that third pitch. He was fooling around with other change-up grips but wasn’t getting a feel for it. I looked at his hands, showed him a splitter grip and it kind of clicked right away.”
Ziccardi relieved against Ewing later in the season and Pienciak said, “he threw that pitch a few times and you could tell it was for real based off the swings they were getting.”
He finished 2-2, as he also pitched a complete-game against Montgomery in a 6-5 victory. He allowed 10 hits and four earned runs, with two coming in the last inning when “I was running out of gas.”
Broad Street Park manager Mike Petrowski told Ziccardi that he will be pitching for Post 313 this summer. Pienciak was so impressed by his 2016 effort, that he feels Ziccardi has the potential to walk on at Rowan, where he will be heading in the fall.
Ziccardi is unsure about that, saying, “That would be a huge commitment I’d have to take on.”
For now, he can look back with pride on a successful senior campaign. He not only hit, pitched and provided leadership at a quality level, but the Hornets had a much better season than anyone imagined.
The highlight came when they defeated Steinert (two days after Ziccardi’s loss), on the same day the Spartans became ranked No. 1 in the state.
“It felt like we won the Central Jersey championship again,” Ziccardi said. “It felt like I never won before that game. We were all going crazy, freaking out. Mo (assistant coach Mike Moceri) kept telling us ‘Act like you’ve won before,’ But we were just so excited.”
It was one of many exciting moments for the surprising Hornets, along with the emergence of their new pitcher.
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