Jada Villegas’ Triumphant Return From A Horrific On-Field Injury

It was about two weeks before Christmas last December and the players at the Riverside, California Big League of Dreams softball tournament could be forgiven for having their thoughts drift off to the pending Winter Holiday break just days away.

Still, there was softball to be played and Coach Chris Garcia was excited to be at the helm of one of the most talented 12U teams in the county, the OC Batbusters-Garcia squad, which had finished 7th at PGF Nationals that summer as a second-year 10U team.

Leading the way was power pitcher Jada Villegas, a 2024 grad out of San Bernardino, California, who was already considered one of the top pitchers in Southern California for her age division.

A lefty with natural movement on her pitches, Jada was already being clocked in the high 50’s and had a vast array of pitches including a curve, drop curve, rise and change-up.

Video of Jada pitching in early 2017…

Jada had been with her coach since she was 9 and Coach Garcia remembered the first time he saw her pitch.

“I was instantly impressed with her at our tryout and decided to catch her myself. I asked her what pitches she threw and she said, ‘Fastball inside, fastball outside and a change-up.’ That was an answer I wasn’t expecting as most kids will name off several different pitches, but I asked her to throw the change and it was money! I whispered to one of my coach, ‘I found the unicorn!’”

On that cool, crisp night on December 9, 2017 in the Toys For Tots tournament, it was a routine night of softball as the Batbusters played the Corona Angels-Edwards team. The Angels were a strong second-year team and remembers Garcia, “We were looking forward to playing them.”

It was the bottom of the 3rd inning and the game was an offensive slugfest with the Batbusters ahead 6-5, but the Angels were threatening to score with runners on second and third and two outs.

Ahead in the count 1-0, Jada was looking to close out the inning and says the last thing she remembers is stepping on the rubber and waiting for the sign.

“It was a change-up, I released the pitch and all I remember next is waking up from what I thought was a dream. I saw my coach and my mom on the phone. Everything was very blurry and I saw a lot of people hovering over me. I didn’t feel any pain in my face, but I did feel pain in my leg.”

Unaware of what happened, Jada was knocked unconscious from a line-drive that struck her left cheek. It would quickly cause such drastic swelling that her left eye was all but closed shut. Still, that wasn’t the worst of her injuries.

“One of our team parents is a nurse and she was checking me out and said my leg needs to be looked at because it had a huge lump,” the pitcher recalls. “Right then, my face began to feel like it was squished together. I hear my coach saying, ‘You’re’ going to be okay,’ and jokingly asking, ‘Can you still pitch?’”

Garcia, trying to relax his star athlete, tried to put her mind at ease but knew Jada was in serious shape. An ambulance pulled up and Jada’s father, Mario, helped carry her off the field.

It was a surreal moment for the 12-year-old.

“When I was in the back of the ambulance I saw my team waving and my two sisters, Jenna and Juju, crying really hard and, even though I didn’t know exactly what was happening, I told them I would be okay.”

At the hospital, Jada was rushed in to get a CT scan to test for head trauma or injuries. Amazingly, a doctor informed the family that there were no significant injuries to the face or head despite the serious swelling, but the athlete would soon hear shocking news.

“The doctor said my leg showed two breaks, the tibia and fibula! I was nervous as I never broke anything before–I was in shock I think. The doctor had to put my leg back in place, so they gave me special medicine which made me sleepy. When I woke up I felt funny and I had a cast all the way up my leg.”

What had happened, Jada soon learned, was that when she was knocked out, she fell in such a way that created the stress on her leg right leg to broke it in two places.

“That night was the hardest and worst ever!” the athlete continues. “I cried all night long, I couldn’t sleep for two main reasons: I wanted to go home and I wanted to play the next day, ‘Championship Sunday (in the Toys For Tots tournament).’ After a long miserable night, we got to go home the next morning. Once we got home we all laid in bed as a family and we hugged and cried and couldn’t believe this had happened.”

The young athlete–who is also a cross-country runner–had to be in a long leg cast for eight weeks and then a knee cast for an additional three weeks.

One of the worst parts of the injury, Jada felt, was the timing–it came right before the holidays.

“I didn’t enjoy my Christmas like I would have,” she explains. “I couldn’t do anything. The thing that made me happy, though, was all the cards, calls, and gifts sent from teammates, family and from other organizations–it made me feel really special.”

“I was able to watch my team on Periscope and wished I could be on the field alongside my teammates, but I couldn’t and that was hard for me.”

After impatiently enduring the nearly three months of wearing leg casts, the big day came when she was “freed:” February 7, 2018.

“I was so happy,” she continues. “I knew I could start throwing, but the only thing I was scared of was to get hit again. My dad told me that I was great and that I couldn’t give up because of an injury. He said that if I love pitching I’d have to face it, because all sports have injuries.”

She emphasizes, however, that she was gently encouraged in her return, not pushed.

“He (her dad) waited until I was ready. I asked to go see my pitching coach, Susie Parra, and she was supportive and treated my lessons different than before. We talked more and pitched less and she really helped me mentally.”

Coach Garcia was also working in parallel with the athlete and her parents to bring back Jada to the field as she was ready, both physically and emotionally.

“I wasn’t really sure how to handle Jada’s return,” Coach Garcia admits. “I originally thought it would be best to have her sit the season and return in the fall, but Jada’s a special kid–she’s just built differently. She’s a competitor and told me, ‘If we get an invite to PGF I want to come back and help my team.’”

The Batbusters hadn’t yet qualified for PGF but at the end of June, Garcia was in Colorado with his 14U team when he got a call saying that the 12U team would receive an at-large PGF Nationals Platinum berth.

Knowing that Jada–if healthy–would get her wish to compete at PGF, her coach had to figure out how to bring his ace back in a way that would help her and the team.

“I had just watched a story on Paige Lowery, the pitcher who was struck by a line-drive while pitching at Missouri ,” he remembers, “and it really helped me understand how to approach Jada and her return. The plan was to slowly work her way back starting with bullpen sessions and then slowly work our way up to live pitching to our slappers.”

Still, there was the psychological aspect of getting back on the field and facing live pitching. Both player and coach agreed on a simple solution and it proved to be the answer in getting Jada’s confidence back.

“Before my injury I didn’t wear a (face) mask,” the athlete states. “Coach Chris bought me a mask and that made me feel comfortable in the circle. My first friendly back I was only able to pitch to the last batter at the end of the lineup. I was nervous but after going out, I wanted to pitch the whole game but I couldn’t–my change-up was not working and I threw the ball outside for every pitch. I wasn’t throwing my change-up like I did before the injury.”

With repetitions, though, Jada says she eased back into her pre-injury form.

“Not too long after that, I got to pitch a full game and I did well. What really helped is my coaches and team believed in me, they constantly cheered me on. With less than a month to go until PGF I had to be ready. I said to myself something my mom told me which was, ‘It was either going to be my biggest setback or going to be my greatest comeback.’”

“I wanted it to be my greatest comeback, but I don’t think anyone really thought I was coming back as it had been over five months. What really helped, though, is my friends and family said I would come back even stronger than before and I believed them.”

“Something I wrote in my journal to help myself was ‘Just get through it, Jada, and get back on the field as soon as possible.’”

When PGF Nationals arrived in late July, Coach Garcia sat with the newly-returned pitcher and asked her what she thought her role should be on the team.

“Without hesitation,” he recounts, “she said, ‘I want to take my team to the championship!’ I said ‘OK!’”

Garcia handed the ball with confidence to his pitcher but admits now he wasn’t sure how she would handle the bright spotlight that comes with PGF Nationals and playing against top competition, especially as a first-year 12U team.

“Jada wasn’t 100 percent,” he explains, “and she really only threw one pitch the entire tournament, but she would go on to pitch seven out of our 10 games and helped take us to the PGF 12U Platinum championship game. She was tremendous, she pitched 46 innings giving up only 10 hits, six walks and had 36 strikeouts with a 1.30 ERA.”

“Our defense played great and our offense gave us the run support to help take some pressure off of Jada,” the Batbusters’ coach continues. “It was a complete team effort to get to the championship game, but there are very few kids that could have done what Jada did that week.”

Her comeback successfully completed, Jada and her Batbuster teammates are ready to put the rough last 10 months behind them.

This weekend, the OC Batbusters team–looking as strong as ever–will kick off its fall season at the PGF Shootout with the 12U games being held in Fountain Valley, California. It will be the next chapter in Jada’s progression from the horrific injuries suffered at the end of 2017, but all concerned are confident the best is yet to come.

“We’re excited for the 2018-19 season,” says Garcia, “and proud of Jada and the team for the way they’ve handled the adversity. Our team’s true character showed when Jada went down and how they responded with love towards her. It will be fun to see how everyone progresses from here.”

As for her successful return to the sport she loves, Jada humbly deflects the credit to others.

“I wouldn’t have made it this far if it wasn’t for my family, coaches and teammates.”