A Day in the Life: Nick DeMonica

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"There are a lot of parallels between doing well in school and doing well on the field in baseball."

It's Thursday, April 10, and Miami senior pitcher Nick DeMonica is in the middle of a busy day.

(Of course, for a college student-athlete, most days are busy days!)

DeMonica, a Mechanical Engineering student from Cortland, Ohio, has just finished giving a presentation in his Engineering Analysis class at Benton Hall. For nearly 20 minutes, DeMonica stood in the front of the classroom and shared about 'Mathematical Modeling in Engineering,' or making equations based off of systems.

References to molecular simulations, thermal and fluid systems, algorithms and force voltage relationships flew by, with DeMonica seeming just as comfortable behind the lectern as he does on the mound. Nick DeMonica

For example:

"First, we're going to linearize our equation. So we're going to make some simplifications," DeMonica had explained to the 10 students scattered around the room (and the professor in the back row who would ultimately determine his grade).

"We're going to linearize our equations about the origin, which means our higher order derivatives." He paused to gesture to the screen to his right. "You can see an example of one here, where it relies on the speed of the car and also the angular rotation of the pendulum. Those are approximately going to be equal to zero."

And on it went from there.

If the material and conclusions sounded extremely advanced, that's because they were. The audience in question was a 600-level class, as DeMonica —an Academic All-District and Academic All-MAC honoree— is on pace to graduate in four years with not one degree from Miami, but two.

The one-time high school valedictorian already earned his undergraduate degree last semester, posting a 3.83 GPA in the process. Now he's putting the finishing touches on a Master's, with a 3.95 graduate GPA to show for it.

During a short break before afternoon practice, DeMonica munched on a lunch of chicken, raspberries and asparagus in the N. Main St. house he shares with three friends (including teammates Landen Looper and Dom Magliocca) and reflected on the similarities between the 'student' and 'athlete' parts of being a student-athlete.

Nick DeMonica

"Engineering, especially, is a major that builds on itself," DeMonica explained. "In some majors, you take your first-year classes and then your second-year classes are going to be totally different, where you don't really need any prior information for them.

"But with engineering, if you slack off and just try to barely pass in your first-level classes, you're setting yourself up for failure. So not only do you have to stay on your work as you're doing it, but it's really good to get ahead…make sure you hammer the beginning concepts of a class, because a lot of classes just build upon the basics.

"If you don't have your foundation set, you're setting yourself up for failure: It's about never really taking a class off. And it's the same thing in baseball. If you're not practicing the most basic fundamentals, but you're trying to do super-high-level stuff, it's not going to really work…

"Our team's entire mindset, when we're up before dark a lot of times in the fall or spring and waking up at 5:30 a.m. to get to practice, is, 'We're not going to waste any time.' It's guys not taking any days off and making sure that they're focused at all times.

"When you wake up for morning practice and then you've got another practice in the afternoon, you don't really have any time to slack off."

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Nick DeMonica is known for his curveball.

"Whenever you can spin a curveball from the left side the way he can, if he's landing it in the zone, he's really hard to hit," said second-year head coach Brian Smiley. "That is a unique pitch – you don't see a lot of guys that can spin it like that."

DeMonica also knows that sometimes life can throw a curveball of its own.

For him, that came at the end of the 2022 season (under Miami's previous coaching staff) when he didn't make the RedHawks' team for the following year.

"My freshman year was a bit of a rollercoaster," DeMonica said. "I had a really good start, and then throughout the season, I kind of declined."

So only a few months after a dream collegiate debut (not allowing a hit in 4.1 innings and earning a relief win over the University of Tennessee at Martin in his first outing), DeMonica found himself trying to figure out what his next move would be.

"I had a few offers when I entered the portal to go elsewhere, but I ended up choosing to just stay here and become a normal student and not play baseball," he said.

"After that, I didn't throw a ball. Once I took my name out of the portal, I went over a year without even touching a baseball. I was still good friends with a lot of guys on the team, so I went to most of the home games and I would tune into the road games that were online…

"But I got a full year of being a normal student. It was fine; it just didn't really seem like I had a purpose. I was here, doing my classwork, almost going through the motions."

Then DeMonica's 20th birthday rolled around: June 24, 2023. Nick DeMonica

"I was at my birthday dinner on a Friday night at 9 p.m., and I got a phone call. My phone screen said, 'Maybe: Brian Smiley.' We had just ordered our food, and it ended up being a 40-minute conversation…he said, 'I want to give you an opportunity to come back on the team.'

"Almost impulsively, I was just like, 'Yeah, let's do it.'…A year on the outside was definitely eye-opening. Once I was given an opportunity to come back, it was a no-doubter…

"I got home, I started throwing that Monday, and it was off to the races since then."

Smiley, who had been hired two weeks earlier to take over Miami Baseball, admitted he had never even seen DeMonica pitch when he dialed the lefty reliever's number. "But I called him up and asked him if he still wanted to be a baseball player, and he jumped on it," Smiley recalled.

"His career has been up and down; he's had good spots, he's had bad spots. But he has never wavered from being just a very consistent person. He is an excellent student, and a good person. He'll graduate in May with his Master's…[despite] a really demanding major and a tough schedule.

"I have the ultimate respect for anybody that can do that and get really good grades and still be an athlete and been through what he's been through off the field.

"He's just a good dude."

And even though neither DeMonica or Smiley could have known at the time, 11 months (nearly to the day) after DeMonica's phone rang, the junior hurler would be starting a postseason game against top-seeded Bowling Green in Miami's first MAC Tournament since 2019.

DeMonica faced 11 Falcon hitters and got 10 outs, allowing only a single hit.

Talk about a comeback story.

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DeMonica initially got his start in baseball at a very young age, following in the footsteps of his father Michael, who played the sport in high school.

"When my dad was first starting to try to get me in sports, he got me a mitt that a right-hander would use. I kept putting it on the wrong hand, and he kept getting frustrated," DeMonica laughed. "Then he realized that I was putting it on the correct hand and I was actually a lefty thrower.

Nick DeMonica

"That was well before I would have even learned to write, so he told me they figured out I was left-handed that way!"

DeMonica is also following his father into the workforce, as he has accepted a position back home in the Youngstown area with Aptiv (where his dad serves as engineering manager) to be a design engineer after graduation. "I did an internship there in the past at one of the manufacturing facilities," the younger DeMonica said. "We were actually making car parts there: It was cool, because I would go out in the parking lot and see parts in cars that we were making inside the building…

"I want to be able to design new things and be able to say, 'Okay, I made that!' I think that's pretty cool," DeMonica continued. "People call an engineering degree a problem-solving degree…If you hand me a problem, I can solve it."

In a basement lab at Benton Hall, DeMonica has been working on a project related to golf swing biomechanics for one of his current classes, although it won't be finished by the end of the semester because of some back-ordered equipment. "A golfer would suit up, put reflective nodes all over [like how a video game is created], and then these cameras would track every part of the body and your swing and put it into a computer so you can analyze it," he explained. "Your shoulder rotation angle, your hip rotation angle, how bent your elbow is at the top of the swing…and how strong a correlation each studied movement has on how hard the ball is hit with how skilled the player is.

"I wanted a real-world-type project," he concluded.

(Of course, it also sounds like a good reason for DeMonica, a four-year member of the golf team at Lakeview High, to further explore one of his favorite hobbies before a day job gets in the way!)

"With his dad being an engineer as well, I'm sure there's some motivation from that standpoint, but you have to be personally motivated and know what you want after baseball's over," Smiley said as he contemplated DeMonica's future career.

"A majority of guys are always in baseball mode and they figure out after they graduate the path they truly want to go. There's nothing wrong with that either, but to really have your ducks in a row and know what you want and the path you want to take your own life at such a young age? To have already been checking those boxes at 18-19-20 years old? I envy those types of people…it's another type of organized, another type of mature."

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"Anybody know the name Ivan Drago in here?"

Inside the Jay Hayden Baseball Center at 2:45 on Thursday afternoon, 40 Miami players had gathered for what they assumed would be a scouting meeting to preview Kent State, the RedHawks' weekend opponent.

The pre-meeting ping-pong game in the players' lounge was over, and all eyes were directed at the front of the room.

But after associate head coach Kyle Trewyn went through the plan for how to hit the Golden Flashes' pitchers and pitching coach Larry Scully broke down the KSU lineup by detailing how to attack each batter, Smiley had a few words of his own to share.

And a movie clip.

The room was quiet, focused and attentive as Smiley strode forward with a pair of hard hats in hand.

"This hat was my dad's. He was an oil pumper for 37 years," Smiley said, holding up the first hat.

"This smaller one was mine for whenever I went to visit him at work. These are a reminder of what blue-collar really means."

Since Smiley arrived in the summer of 2023, his ballclub has built an identity around a blue-collar approach. "As we enter the second half of the year, it's not by luck or chance that we're in the driver's seat," he told his players. "It's because of the work you put in…

"Blue-collar is not just a buzzword I like to talk about. It's a state of mind. You get what you deserve. You get what you earn. It's the equity you've built up: You get out what you put into it. That's life. That's athletics.

"Call it sweat equity. Call it whatever you want. Nothing is handed to the guys that wear the hard hats…that's what this weekend's about. You have to be ready to fight. Don't let someone come in and take what have you earned."

With that said, the video began to roll and scenes from Rocky IV filled the nearby screen.

"Rocky Balboa is in serious trouble! They might have to stop this one before someone gets killed."

A few minutes later, the music swelled, the knockout punch was thrown, Sylvester Stallone's arm was raised, and the film session ended with a round of applause from the gathered players.

"We are Rocky, and they're Ivan," Smiley said. "It's a heavyweight fight…there's a clear path to first or second in this league, and it goes right through Kent State."

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"Know what that video taught me? Rocky would never have taken a first-pitch fastball." Miami Baseball at McKie Field

Assistant Miguel Rivera wasn't the only coach or player cracking jokes as the team began its pre-practice stretching routine outside at McKie Field a few minutes later. The mood was loose and lighthearted despite the RedHawks being in the midst of a busy stretch with five games in six days and a critical series against a perennial MAC power looming.

The water-cooler talk as guys wandered through the dugout was often literally about the water cooler. Well, in this case, the Gatorade cooler. "That's some good brew. That's a good blend today," several players commented after sampling the beverage.

DeMonica, who is wearing his third different jersey number in three seasons, got some throwing done in the outfield along with the other pitchers before helping shag balls during the RedHawks' situational scrimmaging. The pop of baseballs hitting leather mitts reverberated across the stadium as practice officially got underway. It was a light session for DeMonica, who had faced one hitter Tuesday against Xavier as a 'lefty specialist' (retiring the Musketeers' left-handed catcher on a fifth-inning fly ball to left field).

Wednesday's game against Cincinnati ended up getting canceled after a handful of innings due to weather, but DeMonica wasn't even there. Since he had pitched the day before, the team kept him home to get an extra weightlifting session in while the rest of the RedHawks made the trek to Prasco Park in nearby Mason.

"I was lucky I didn't have to deal with all the cold and rain," DeMonica said. "Since it's a one-day trip, if you're not going to pitch, there's no reason to bring you along and take you out of class."

Today, the Miami hitters practiced bunting, moving runners over, squeeze plays, hit-and-run situations, and clutch two-out hitting against batting-practice-speed pitches from a coach. "We need to be better scoring a runner from third with less than two outs," Smiley had instructed the group.

The drill involved each RedHawk trying to successfully execute five consecutive tasks or calls while at the plate, culminating with a line drive directly off of the protective screen in front of the mound.

Miami Baseball win

"Sac bunt!"

"Get him over!"

"Hit him in!"

If the hitter messed up any of the five attempts, his turn immediately ended and the line kept moving.

"Hawks win!", someone yelled after a drive to left-center that bounced near the wall. "That'll bring some guys home!"

Eventually, a handful of Miami pitchers took turns throwing 'live' to try and get hitters out. In these scenarios, there was plenty of chatter echoing in the infield to encourage both battling teammates: the one in the batter's box and the one 60 ½ feet away trying to retire him.

By 5:15 p.m., some of the group started to disperse, with DeMonica and a handful of other players heading directly to the Walter L. Gross Jr. Family Student Athlete Development Center for a weightlifting session. Usually the hitters lifted first, followed by the pitchers, but DeMonica typically joins the early group to accommodate his class schedule. (On this particular Thursday, he knew he still had one more lecture awaiting him before his 10:30 p.m. bedtime that evening, an online class about FDA Regulations and Medical Device Laws.)

Before that, however, the next hour in the weight room would see the senior pitcher rotating quickly through a myriad of stations as part of an individualized workout plan he retrieved from a color-coded 'Baseball – Week 13' folder. After choosing from the 'Dynamic' or 'Active Recovery' prescribed exercises, DeMonica proceeded to alternate a series of stretches, lifts, pulls and climbs with music pumping in the background.

Although there were plenty of RedHawks in the room, conversation was scarce. The vibe was a focused one, with the task in front of each Miami player clear and obvious:

Beat Kent State.

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Less than 22 hours later, the series against the Flashes would begin. And Miami couldn't have dreamed of a better start.

In the top half of the opening inning Friday afternoon, a pickoff move erased Kent State's first baserunner, the talented Jake Casey (son of three-time MLB All-Star Sean Casey). The RedHawks knew KSU liked to steal bases and get in scoring position, so the Miami coaches had emphasized throwing over to keep the baserunners honest. That literally paid off within the first few minutes of the contest.

And when Miami got its turn at the plate in the bottom of the frame, the Red and White quickly loaded the bases with nobody out. A pair of sacrifice flies, an RBI double, and a two-run single later, the first-inning scoreboard read 5-0.

"It's the best pitching staff we've seen top to bottom," Trewyn had said Thursday. "But we're the best lineup they've seen top to bottom." Miami baseball scoreboard

The home team wouldn't score another run Friday…but after that initial offensive explosion, it didn't need any. Miami hung on to claim game one 5-4. Although the visitors bounced back to win Saturday's matchup, the RedHawks closed out the series with a 9-7 victory Sunday afternoon.

So far this season, Miami has won every conference series it's played. And it's no wonder the RedHawks are MAC Tournament-bound and still very much in the hunt for a league title.

"We might not have had the year that we wanted to last year at 27-27," DeMonica said. (In fact, the coaching staff handed out shirts with '.500' written on the back to help ensure that the RedHawks understood their 2024 record didn't meet the team's expectations.) "But with a lot of returners this year and bringing in a lot of new guys (a lot of pieces that we needed)…I think Coach Smiley's done a really good job giving us a completely different mindset on the field.

"He talks about a two-headed snake, where the two heads are the pitchers and the hitters. You might beat the hitters one day, but then the pitchers are going to beat you. And if you try to go at the pitchers, the hitters are going to beat you.

"Then if you go for the middle and try to get both of them, both the pitchers and hitters are going to pounce on you."

"You get glimpses: Whenever we do both, pitch and hit, we run-rule teams," Smiley added. "When we do that, we're as good as anybody out there, in the Midwest at least. Part of growing a program is you're not going to have every cylinder clicking together right away, at least I keep telling myself that. If you try to maintain perspective in how far we've come in a year, it makes you feel a little bit better about everything…

"It shows you how far from a mentality standpoint that the program has come in a short time, and it's the honest truth: Last year at this time, we were hoping to win a conference game. Now we're [upset] if we lose one."

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Miami University will hold its spring commencement ceremony on Saturday, May 17 at Yager Stadium. Despite earning his Master's degree this spring, DeMonica won't be in attendance.

That's because the RedHawks are scheduled to play their regular-season finale at Ball State --one of the two teams Miami is currently tied with at the top of the MAC standings-- that same day in Muncie, Ind.

Instead, Miami Baseball will hold an 'alternate graduation' this Sunday at McKie Field in conjunction with the RedHawks' final home game against Akron.

"We do a commencement on the field: All of our seniors who are graduating will walk across and Coach Smiley will hand us our diplomas. It's like our own mini-baseball graduation," said DeMonica.

Nick DeMonica

The semester's conclusion also marks the end of an era for DeMonica in the sport he's played for nearly his entire life to date (whenever Miami's postseason run ends, that is).

And while he's looking forward to living at home for a while and joining the workforce (which means being closer to family and giving his mom a break from sending her regular care packages!), DeMonica admitted that closing the college chapter of his life will be an adjustment.

"It's definitely bittersweet knowing it's coming to an end," he said. "I've gained so many experiences here. Going to a small high school, I graduated with 135 kids, so everything was kind of the same my whole life. Then coming here with 20,000 students, every day you're meeting new people. I've gotten out of my comfort zone a bit…developing myself professionally in terms of how I handle my business, not only with baseball but with school as well…

"I'm proud of coming back and —once I started playing baseball again— not giving in and taking it easy or making an excuse of, 'Oh, I'd didn't throw for a year.'

"There's been a lot of competition within the team: Battling for roles, battling for a spot on the roster even. So just sticking to it and not giving into anything and coming out the other side with two degrees is what I'm proudest of."

Find more Front Row Features at: MiamiRedHawks.com/FrontRowFeatures

Miami Baseball wraps up the home portion of its schedule this weekend with a three-game series against Akron inside McKie Field at Hayden Park. First pitch on Friday, May 9 is set for 3 p.m., with Saturday and Sunday contests slated to begin at 1 p.m. Miami will recognize its seniors, its graduates, and two returning championship teams from the past (2000 and 2005) as part of the festivities at the ballpark. Admission is free.

Players Mentioned

Nick DeMonica

Landen Looper

Dom Magliocca

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