The CT Softball Blog

PLANTSVILLE—The Connecticut softball world has always been a small one.

Small enough that a young pitcher from Bristol and an umpire working behind the plate could share a milestone game, then travel their separate journeys through the sport for years before their paths crossed again Sunday.

This time, Sara Plourde Zirkle wasn’t standing in the pitching circle and Ron Vargas wasn’t behind the plate.

They were both Hall of Famers.

Plourde Zirkle and Vargas were part of the five-member Class of 2026 inducted Sunday afternoon into the Connecticut Scholastic and Collegiate Softball Hall of Fame at the Aqua Turf Club, joining former Masuk standout Tatum Buckley, longtime Seymour coach Ken Pereiras and Milford’s Bill Garfield.

And in many ways, the Plourde Zirkle-Vargas connection told the story of the afternoon better than any plaque or list of accomplishments could.

Years ago, their paths crossed on a softball field when Vargas was behind the plate for a milestone moment in Plourde Zirkle’s remarkable pitching career, her 1,000th career strikeout while at Bristol Eastern.

On Sunday, toward the end of his induction speech, Vargas looked toward his fellow inductee.

“Sarah, I was the plate umpire in your thousandth strikeout,” he said.

Plourde Zirkle hadn’t known.

And perhaps that’s exactly how it should have been.

A good umpire isn’t supposed to become part of the story. He simply does his job while history happens around him.

Years later, however, the pitcher and the umpire became part of the same story.

That’s Connecticut softball.

Players become coaches. Coaches become mentors. Umpires who once call the biggest moments of a player’s career eventually find themselves sitting alongside those same players as both are honored for what they have given the game.

The years pass. But the game keeps bringing everybody back together.

For Sunday’s five inductees, the paths that brought them to the Hall of Fame were decidedly different.

There was one of the most dominant pitchers Connecticut has produced, another who starred both in the circle and at the plate before playing Division I softball, a coach who helped turn a small Valley town into one of the state’s softball capitals, an umpire who spent four decades calling games from Connecticut high school fields to the NCAA postseason, and a longtime coach, administrator and volunteer whose contribution to the game was measured less by statistics than by opportunities created for others.

Together, they made up the Hall of Fame’s Class of 2026.

Sara Plourde Zirkle: More than the numbers

The numbers attached to Sara Plourde Zirkle’s softball career are staggering.

At Bristol Eastern, she helped lead the Lancers to a Class L state championship before heading to UMass, where she became one of the nation’s most dominant pitchers.

As a sophomore, Plourde Zirkle went 40-8 with a 1.30 ERA and struck out 556 batters. She followed that with 498 strikeouts as a junior and eventually finished her UMass career with a 109-35 record and 1,662 strikeouts.

She threw 16 no-hitters, recorded 45 shutouts and was a three-time Atlantic 10 Pitcher of the Year.

Yet standing before family, friends and fellow inductees Sunday, Plourde Zirkle talked far less about strikeouts than about the people and lessons behind them.

Especially failure.

She recalled one championship game in which she walked approximately “18 or 19 batters” but also struck out 18.

Years later, she asked her coaches why they had left her in the game.

Their answer?

She had also hit a grand slam, so she had gotten some of those runs back.

“As funny as that story is, what I appreciate the most is that they let me work through failure,” Plourde Zirkle said. “There are moments where I believe we are more capable of something than we ever imagined, and we just need the right people to help us see it.”

It’s a lesson she carries into her work today with young athletes.

“I see too many coaches and parents who become so focused on winning that they forget to let their kids grow through failure,” she said. “Winning is fun, but when you’re 12, one of the most valuable lessons is, how do I rebound when I fall on my face?”

Her career eventually took her beyond Connecticut and UMass. She pitched for the Canadian National Team and moved into coaching before creating SP_IN_MOTION, where she now works with young athletes.

Sunday, however, brought her back to where it began.

Her parents were seated in the front row. Her husband, Nathan, was there with their two young daughters, Ava and Natalie.

“I cannot explain how much it warms my heart to be inducted in front of my young daughters,” Plourde Zirkle said. “It’s truly a dream come true.”

And somewhere in the room was an umpire who had once watched one of those 1,000 strikeouts from a few feet away.

Ken Pereiras: He’ll always be Coach Ken

For 35 years, Ken Pereiras was known by two words.

Coach Ken.

First as Bill Davis’ longtime assistant and then as Seymour’s head coach, Pereiras helped build and sustain one of Connecticut’s signature high school softball programs.

The Wildcats won seven state championships during his tenure as head coach and nine Naugatuck Valley League titles while producing generations of players who became synonymous with Seymour softball.

There was also a 78-game winning streak from 2005-07.

Pereiras remembered plenty of those moments Sunday, including one in which star pitcher Danielle Liska disappeared before the national anthem.

They eventually found her coming back from the bleachers.

She had gone to get a hot dog.

“She then went out and pitched a no-hitter,” Pereiras said. “So it wasn’t a bad idea.”

But the most revealing moment of Pereiras’ speech came when he talked about what happened when all the winning stopped.

Retirement.

“For 35 years, I was Coach Ken,” he said. “That is who I was. It was a big part of my identity and a big part of my life.”

When he retired, Pereiras wondered what was left.

“I’m no longer a coach, and this is all I know,” he remembered thinking. “Softball has been my life. For 35 years I was Coach Ken, and now I’m retired and I’m nobody.”

Sunday changed that perspective.

“Standing here today, I realized I was wrong because coaching was never just about the wins, the championships or the numbers,” Pereiras said. “It was about the people, the players, the coaches, the families and all the young women I was fortunate to coach and watch grow.”

Then came the line that probably summed up his Hall of Fame afternoon better than any career statistic could.

“I will always be proud to be Coach Ken.”

Ron Vargas: From closing his eyes to the Hall of Fame

Ron Vargas’ umpiring career didn’t exactly begin with Hall of Fame foreshadowing.

His first pitch as a high school umpire came with veteran official Dudley Hamlin working alongside him.

The pitch came in.

Vargas ducked.

He closed his eyes.

And he called it a ball.

There was only one problem.

The batter had swung.

“I look up, Dudley’s laughing,” Vargas recalled. “He’s on the ground.”

Somehow, Vargas recovered.

Over approximately four decades, he became one of Connecticut’s most respected softball officials, working high school games, college games and NCAA postseason assignments at the Division I, II and III levels.

There were seasons in which he worked as many as 160 college games.

But Vargas’ speech Sunday centered largely on the officials he watched and learned from, including Hamlin and others.

Eventually, Vargas became the veteran other umpires watched.

And through all those games and all those miles, umpiring gave him something else.

Family.

“Being an umpire, you travel all over, you meet people,” Vargas said. “We’re like our own family now. I mean, there are guys over here that I’d do anything for.”

Then came his final aside.

The one that tied the afternoon together.

“Sarah,” he said, “I was the plate umpire in your thousandth strikeout.”

Small world, indeed.

Tatum Buckley: Still proud to have worn a Masuk uniform

Tatum Buckley couldn’t be in Plantsville Sunday to accept her induction in person.

Her words were there, though, as Buckley, the former Masuk standout, still had the opportunity to address the Hall of Fame gathering through a recorded video.

Few players in Connecticut softball history could impact a game in as many ways as Buckley.

She was a three-time All-State selection and two-time Gatorade Connecticut Player of the Year.

As a junior, she went 27-0 with a 0.37 ERA and 289 strikeouts while leading Masuk to the Class L state championship.

She also hit better than .500.

A year later, she went 19-3 with a microscopic 0.10 ERA, striking out 295 batters while walking just six.

Buckley went on to Florida Atlantic University, where she played for legendary coach Joan Joyce, and also spent time with the Stratford Brakettes.

Years removed from those games, however, Buckley’s message Sunday wasn’t centered on statistics.

“When I look back on those years, I don’t just think about the games or the accomplishments,” Buckley said. “I think about the people I shared them with, the memories that were made and how much those experiences really meant to me.”

She thanked her family, coaches and teammates before adding: “It’s incredibly special to be recognized all these years later for something that meant so much to me growing up. I will always be proud to have worn a Masuk softball uniform and to be part of Connecticut softball.”

Bill Garfield: A ‘glorified’ father who helped others play

Bill Garfield looked at the other four members of the Class of 2026 and came to a conclusion.

“I am clearly out of my weight class,” he said.

Garfield, Sunday’s honorary inductee, then offered his own description of his softball career.

“I’m really just a glorified father who cares about the sport and hopefully helping some kids,” he said.

That might undersell things a bit.

Garfield helped create Intrepid Softball in Milford, later started the CT Barracudas and spent approximately a dozen years around the Dartmouth College softball program while working as a sports information contact and eventually helping with practices.

Professionally, his work with Milford’s recreation department has also put him in position to provide something every softball team needs.

A place to play.

Garfield estimated Sunday that he has issued more than 10,000 hours of softball field time during his years with the department.

His family’s connection to the game has continued, too.

His oldest daughter, Tegan, played for the Barracudas. His middle daughter, Molly, plays at Notre Dame Prep.

And somehow, Garfield noted, Molly’s softball journey eventually connected back to Seymour and people connected to Pereiras.

“Once again,” Garfield said, “this circle of softball keeps getting smaller.”

There it was again.

The theme of the afternoon.

Garfield never played fastpitch softball himself.

Still, he hopes his contribution can be measured in something beyond his own playing résumé.

“I’d like to believe over the years I have played a small role in helping a lot of girls discover a love for the game and continuing to play through high school and college,” Garfield said. “I think softball’s a very special sport.”

The circle keeps getting smaller

Five inductees.

Five very different journeys.

One room.

Plourde Zirkle talked about parents and coaches who allowed her to fail so she could learn how to succeed.

Pereiras discovered that being “Coach Ken” never really ended when he handed in the lineup card for the final time.

Vargas remembered ducking away from the first pitch he ever called before spending four decades becoming the kind of umpire younger officials could learn from.

Buckley looked back not at ERAs or strikeout totals, but at the people with whom she shared the experience.

Garfield, the self-described “glorified father,” looked around and noticed something else.

Perhaps that’s Connecticut softball’s secret.

People leave the circle. They graduate. They retire. They move away. The uniforms get packed into closets and the trophies gather dust.

But the connections remain.

A pitcher from Bristol Eastern reaches 1,000 strikeouts with an umpire named Ron Vargas standing behind her.

Years pass.

And one Sunday afternoon in Plantsville, they find themselves together again.

This time, nobody needs to call balls and strikes.

They’re Hall of Famers.

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