Olivia Pichardo has made historical past.
The 18-year-old Brown College freshman from Queens, New York has turn into the primary girl in NCAA Division I historical past to be named to a varsity baseball roster. The Rhode Island college celebrated the event in a press launch, saying that Pichardo's "dogged dedication" allowed her to make the workforce.
Pichardo has performed baseball since she was a baby, beginning in kindergarten. In center college, she performed on journey and varsity groups, and in 2022, she lastly tried out for the USA Baseball Ladies's Nationwide Group, a purpose that had been delayed by the coronavirus pandemic. Along with her time on the sphere as a pitcher and outfielder, she interned with the New York Mets' scouting division.
Pichardo mentioned that when she dedicated to attending Brown, she instantly set her sights on the baseball diamond and the varsity's workforce, the Brown Bears.
"For me, I at all times simply wished to play faculty baseball, it doesn't matter what division it was," Pichardo mentioned.
In line with the varsity, Pichardo participated within the workforce's walk-on tryouts in September, adopted by a weeks-long evaluation course of that included intense exercises and practices with present gamers. In October, head coach Grant Achilles introduced that Pichardo can be on the roster for the 2023 season, which begins in February. Brown College shared video of the second on Instagram, which confirmed the workforce cheering for Pichardo as she smiled.
"It was undoubtedly a surreal second for me as a result of it is one thing that I've wished since eighth grade," Pichardo mentioned. "It is sort of loopy to know that I am dwelling out my dream proper now and my splendid faculty expertise that I've at all times wished, in order that's actually cool."
When the workforce's season begins with a four-series sport at Georgia State College, Pichardo will function a utility participant, which means she will cowl positions in each the infield and the outfield. She is one in every of 31 gamers at present on the college's roster.
In line with Baseball For All, a nonprofit that works to enhance gender fairness in baseball, at the least eight girls will play on collegiate baseball groups within the 2023 season, however none on the Division 1 stage Pichardo can be on. A file variety of girls had been rostered on faculty baseball groups in 2020 and 2021, in line with the group, simply over 30 years after Julie Crouteau made historical past as the primary girl to play on a school workforce in 1989.
"I am simply actually glad that we're having increasingly feminine baseball gamers on the collegiate stage, and it doesn't matter what division, it is simply actually good to see this development," Pichardo mentioned. "It is actually paving the best way for different women within the subsequent technology to even have these targets that they wish to obtain and dream huge and know that they will do it."