Nottingham’s Nick Houghton goes yard in the MCT Final against Hopewell. Photo by Michael A. Sabo
By Rich Fisher
Fish4scores.com
May 26: Tommy McParland only had a few minutes to talk for an interview.
“I gotta get to the dentist,” he said. “My teeth are jammed up in my gums.”
Which is why McParland perfectly symbolized what the Nottingham High baseball team has been all about over the past four years. It was a gritty, gutsy, grind-it-out group that battled until the last out of every game.
McParland was hit by a pitch to start the game. It glanced off his shoulder off his mouth, prompting a re-aligning of teeth that had his lower lip jutting out. And yet, he remained in the entire game and was stranded on second base as the season ended with a 4-2 loss to top-seeded Hopewell Valley in the Mercer County Tournament championship game at DeMeo Field tonight.
“No way I was coming out,” McParland said. “I have to compete with my guys. It’s the last game of my career. I gotta compete with them. Unfortunately, we didn’t come out on top but we gave it our best.”
They sure did.
Facing Andy Blake – who said after the game he knew he was starting all along despite the reticence displayed by Bulldogs coach Ken Harrison after Thursday’s state game – Nottingham faced a 4-0 deficit with six outs remaining.
Suddenly, it was a 4-2 deficit with six outs left as David Scott singled and Nick Houghton homered to start the sixth. Nottingham put runners on first and second with two outs before Blake – who earned MVP honors – got a strikeout to end it.
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With the Northstars still battling, Brett Hoffman singled to start the seventh and McParland grounded into a fielder’s choice. After a fly out, Houghton singled to put the tying runs on before Blake got a ground out to end it.
“We had an opportunity, we had the top of the order up,” coach Jim Maher said. “I told them ‘You seniors are gonna get one more at-bat in your career, make it a memorable one.’ They had seven-eight-nine coming up in their seventh, you score three runs there and you got a good chance to win the ballgame. We had a chance.
“But again, we had chances, we did not just hit enough. It came back to bite us again.”
Houghton agreed, saying, “I felt (we could come back), but we’ve been struggling all year to spark our offensive side. We have little sparks here and there but one inning of a game isn’t gonna change the outcome, you gotta do it all the time. That’s what hurt us today.”
The fact that the Northstars got so far with such sporadic hitting is a tribute to how they have fought and battled since Maher took over four years ago.
“We never give up on our team,” McParland said. “I don’t know if we have the best lineup but we find a way to grind and I wouldn’t want to be on any other team. I love these guys.”
Maher came in and ruffled some feathers when he made McParland, Houghton and Bryce Fremgen starters in their freshman year. They paid him back by going 72-31 (.667 winning percentage), and winning 15 state and county tournament games, a Valley Division title and a Central Jersey Group III title while reaching the MCT finals twice.
“When we came in here four years ago, Nottingham was not a very good program,” Maher said. “For what we’ve done — these seniors have changed the culture here. We’ve been the best program in Mercer County over a four year span. We’ve been there every year, we just fell short in some big games.”
Houghton felt that Maher’s confidence in the trio of ninth-graders gave them the confidence to succeed on varsity.
“When we came in as freshman with coach Maher, he trusted us,” the Monmouth-bound senior said. “He put us out there over seniors and for the last four years we’ve held this team and carried this team. I’m speechless about the season and career. We think we did a great job, unfortunately we didn’t come out with any hardware.”
McParland felt they may have come out with something more important.
“We learned a lot the past four years, about how to compete,” said the shortstop, who will play at Widener with Fremgen next year. “We came in our freshman year and it was great. Not just on the field. We learned a lot on and off the baseball field. We learned how to compete and going on into the real world we’re gonna be real successful.”
“Listen, these four years have been one of the best high school careers that all of us seniors could have had,” Houghton said. “We’ve done some pretty productive things in the four years here.”
And Houghton was a big reason for that. On Thursday, he collected his 100th career hit. Tonight, he notched his 100th strikeout of the season by fanning the side in the third. He finished with six Ks and 103 for the season, and Maher was racking his brain to recall a CVC player with 100 career hits and 100 season strikeouts.
“He’ll go down as the best pitcher that ever pitched in this school,” the coach said.
Houghton graduates as the school’s all-time leader in wins and strikeouts, but downplays the numbers.
“Those are just milestones,” he said. “They’re great milestones to gain but personally I don’t think they define you as a player. If you didn’t get 100 hits or didn’t get 100 strikeouts, that doesn’t mean you can’t be the best pitcher in the state or the best player in the state. There’s plenty of people, when they’re younger, they don’t have the best seasons but they spark up and have great junior and senior seasons. I was fortunate I was able to get those milestones, but they don’t define you as a player.”
Tom McParland’s jammed teeth in his gums, however, did define Nottingham as a team.
