Bad jumps and bad advice can’t stop ‘Excellence’ from shining in Nick Dardas

MOUNT PLEASANT, MI – Nick Dardas knows that things move quickly in life and in baseball.

And dwelling on a bad break won’t help anyone prepare for the next step that comes along.

Take the guy who just took a bad hit to the mask, a one-hopper to the fingers, or a curveball to the cup: shake him, suck it up, and keep playing.

“My first appearance in college, I came in and Logan Buczkowski was throwing — and he’s throwing like 93 mph,” Dardas said. “The first pitch he threw, we were crossed. I called Curve and he threw a fastball – and I carried 93 mph clean to the gut.

“But I created my own mental process to reset after every pitch. I wasn’t going to make the same mistake over and over again, and I wasn’t going to let one thing carry over into the next.

So with every curveball that came his way during a five-year career as a catcher for the Central Michigan University baseball team, Dardas adapted to it, adapted to it and thrived along the way. of road.

And that’s what helped make the 2019 Bay City Western graduate an invaluable role model for the Chippewas this season – as well as a recipient of the Mid-American Conference Medal of Excellence. This prestigious award is given to graduating athletes who have distinguished themselves through athletic pursuits, academics, service and leadership, with only one male and one female athlete chosen from each MAC school.

Dardas matched the medal of excellence by not only earning a degree in finance and a 3.76 GPA, but by being a rock-solid member for a CMU baseball team that endured a season of challenges . A coaching change and the subsequent departure of a handful of players provided a transitional year for the tradition-rich program, which struggled through a 17-38 campaign.

But the Chippewas had someone to rely on in Dardas, who was recruited by Steve Jaksa, played four seasons under Jordan Bischel and became a go-to player for first-year coach Jake Sabol. He was the last member of his recruiting class in the program.

“Despite all these changes, he never wavered in favor of CMU,” Sabol said. “He was willing to commit to all three guys, and that shows a lot. He’s the kind of impact guy you need on your team to show the younger guys what you expect.

At 5-foot-10 and 180 pounds, Dardas is somewhat undersized for a college athlete. But he never let that deter him from the daunting challenge of playing at the Division I level or running for the most grueling position in sports. Remarkably, in his five seasons with the Chippewas, he never missed a game or practice due to injury.

“The days you get hit once are the days you get hit 15 times, and it never ends,” Dardas said. “When the pitcher throws something that hitters consistently miss – and he swings it into the center of your mask – those are the days when it gets a little exhausting.”

The son of Kathy and Gary Dardas established himself as a senior receiver at Bay City Western, where he earned all-state honors and was twice named to the MLive Bay City Dream Team. He inspired the Warriors to back-to-back Saginaw Valley League championships in 2018 and 2019 and was selected to play in the Michigan High School Baseball Coaches Association All-Star Game at Comerica Park as a senior. He was also named American Legion Regional MVP while competing with Midland Berryhill.

He was thrust into action as a freshman at CMU in 2020, playing in seven games before the season was cut short by the coronavirus shutdown. He has been a part of the receiver rotation ever since, playing in 179 games in a maroon and gold uniform with 136 starts. Dardas played a key role on the 2021 MAC championship team and the 2022 MAC tournament championship team.

With a strong arm and a tough mentality – and baseball’s courage to regulate pitchers and umpires – he distinguished himself as a high-end defensive catcher.

“I just wanted to be a great receiver. It was one of my priorities and nothing else was above it,” he said. “Obviously it’s not the flashiest thing to do, but it’s something I have a great passion for.”

Dardas never quite matched his defensive prowess with his hitting ability, but he nonetheless developed into a valuable man at the plate. He hit .220 for his career, but showed flashes of power with 23 doubles and eight home runs. Above all, he made pitchers work hard to get him out and worked his way onto the bases with 68 walks and 32 hits per pitch.

He hit .226 as a senior with four home runs, 15 RBIs and nine stolen bases, with 22 walks and a team-high 14 touchdowns per pitch, which is the eighth-most in a single season in history of CMU.

“He’s smart and plays hard, and that makes up for some of the things he’s lacking,” Sabol said. “He’s not a power player, he’s not a burner, but he was a consistent player who we knew would give us quality hitting and we wanted to find a spot for him in the lineup.”

It says a lot about Dardas’ intangibles that the CMU coaching staff was so determined to keep a career .220 hitter in the lineup that they asked him to play second base when he didn’t. He wasn’t behind home plate.

As a fifth-year senior, he took on that added challenge and — for the first time since youth ball — he became a regular on the court without wearing a mask.

“I saw it as another way to get in the lineup and help the team win,” Dardas said. “It gave me a different perspective on games. Compared to my entire college career and most of my high school career, I viewed the game from a 180-degree perspective.

A three-time MAC academic honoree, Dardas recently graduated and is set to begin his career in financial planning at Fidelity Investments. The 23-year-old also plans to help coach and educate the next generation of baseball players, passing on the knowledge and opportunities he said so many of his coaches have provided him.

“I owe a lot to all my coaches over the years,” he said. “It’s the people as much, if not more, than the game that make baseball what it is.”

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