EAST HAVEN—You always see players representing their hometown, wearing their school or town jerseys, but few get to represent their heritage.
Melody Perez, a soft-spoken, 12-year-old rising seventh grader at Joseph Melillo Middle School in East Haven, is one of those few who will soon pull on a jersey that gets her in touch with her past.
This fall, Melody will travel to Puerto Rico, where one of her grandmothers still lives, to play for the the Puerto Rico Fast-pitch Club as it takes part in the World Stage Elite Softball Tournament.
She got her start in softball at just three years old, training and running reps with her dad, Luis. He signed her up for her first team when she was eight.
Ever since then, Melody has fallen in love with the game. She has hopes to play in college one day, specifically for the University of Connecticut.
Today, Melody plays on three teams: her middle school team, the North Haven Nighthawks, and the CT Titans.
She spends her week practicing for two hours twice a week with her travel team and then spends about three hours at each game she plays.
Melody’s main position is pitching where she has a velocity of 54 mph. But she’s also an outfielder and a utility player, who has a knack for getting on base. She has an on base percentage of .790 this season.
Melody has had plenty of coaching, not only from her dad who helped her get her started in the game— and to this day still runs drills and reviews game tape with her—but from other coaches, too.
She has been coached by her pitching coaches, Brianna Sawicki and Kayla Gold; her former hitting coach, Brett Bradanini; her Titans travel coach, Ryan Earnheart, and her coach for the North Haven Nighthawks, Mike Piscatelli.
When asked about Melody, Piscatelli, the coach of her primary team, said, “She’s an absolute pleasure to have on my team. She’s got a positive attitude, and she’s the most versatile player I have. Pitcher, catcher, perfect utility player, wherever I put her, I know she’s gonna do a great job. Honestly (when) our team is hitting, she’s the only one right now I’m confident is going to go get one every time for me.”
With hopes to one day play in college, Melody’s mom, Chelsea Epps-Perez has joined all the softball pages on social media, hoping to make contacts to help her daughter reach this goal.
One day, she stumbled across a post for a tryout for the Puerto Rico Fastpitch Club.
With the help of her parents, Melody submitted more than a dozen videos to the club.
The family heard back with a yes.
This fall, Melody will be traveling to Puerto Rico for the first time to play for the World Stage Elite Puerto Rico Fastpitch Club, where she will be coached by professional softball coach, Cesar Hernandez.
However, playing on the Puerto Rico Fastpitch Club isn’t just like playing or wearing jerseys for North Haven or for Joseph Melillo Middle School.
This time it’s different.
Not only will Melody get to travel to Puerto Rico and experience playing in a new place far from home, but with her Puerto Rican heritage, every time Melody puts on that uniform she gets to go back and connect both to her roots and her relatives, some, like her grandma, who still live in Puerto Rico.
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