Franklin Square ace Vilchez makes strong showing for Peru

Former H. Frank Carey softball star Rebecca Vilchez returned from her first international fast-pitch tournament last week as positive and irrepressible as ever. The SUNY Oswego southpaw had just spent an eventful few days under the blazing Southern California sun pitching for Team Peru in the USA International Cup, a 12-team slugfest that featured some of the world’s best softball players and teams.

“It’s usually only about 70 degrees,” Vilchez said, “but we got there in the middle of a heat wave. It was about a hundred.”

The tournament, which was held at the Colonel Bill Barker Stadium in Irvine, Calif., featured two USA teams, as well as squads from Canada, China, Colombia, The Czech Republic, Japan, Puerto Rico, Taiwan, Venezuela and the professional Scrap Yard Fast Pitch team, which didn’t take part in the competition.

“I was a little nervous going in,” Vilchez said. “I didn’t know any of the girls. I’d never even met anyone from Peru before.”

Vilchez is of Peruvian ancestry. It was one of her coaches at Oswego, Morgan Nandin, a former star at powerhouse Syracuse University and pitcher for Team Colombia, who encouraged her to try out.

Peru, ranked 19th in the world going into the tournament, dropped all four of its games, but Vilchez pitched impressively, allowing only one earned run in four outings. In the final match-up against Team Colombia, she fanned three batters in the final two frames of relief and gave up just one hit. Despite her efforts, though, Colombia blanked Peru 8-0.

“We didn’t have as good a record as we wanted, but I still felt good,” she said. “Peru didn’t do so well a few years ago. But this year, we showed that we really could play with the best.”

Ever the team player, Vilchez said her own performance owed much to the support of the infield. “I’m the kind of pitcher who generates a lot of ground balls,” she said. “The infield really supported me — they really had my back.”

Back home, Vilchez has thrown herself back into physical conditioning and coaching her under-14 travel team, the New York Lady Cobras. “They’re doing well,” she said. “They just came in first in a local tournament” — the 2018 Summer Breeze Tournament. The team traveled to Hershey, Penn., last weekend for another tournament, where they posted a .500 record in a rain-delayed double-header.

Next up, Vilchez will return to Oswego for her junior year and fall ball. As always, her coach, Abby Martin, has given the team summer assignments. “She wants us to write about the World Series and to make notes about our nutrition and the ways our bodies are changing,” she said. Team practice starts in late August.

Vilchez’s next international outing will be a tournament with Team Peru in Aruba in October. After that come the Pan-American Games, which open next July 26 in Lima. “It’s a really big deal,” Vilchez said with obvious awe I her voice. “It’s like the Olympics, with all the ceremonies.”

Vlichez said she felt really grateful for all the opportunities. “I didn’t know anybody when I joined the Peruvian team. Now, I have 20 new family members, 20 new best friends.”