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Can there be any doubt that Rachel Garcia will forever be considered as one of the greatest players in softball history?
Last week–June 27, to be exact–the former UCLA great was crowned as the 2023 Athletes Unlimited AUX Softball champion and, as noted in the article:
Garcia, the runner-up during the inaugural AUX campaign last summer, compiled a 4-1 record in the circle while pacing the league with a 3.19 earned run average. The former UCLA star set an AUX single-season record with 34 strikeouts over 37.1 innings and secured one of the league’s two complete game efforts.
This was just another star in the cap of the two-way standout who has played in the Olympics for Team USA in 2020, was a two-time winner of the Honda Cup during her playing career at UCLA, was a three-time Pac-12 Player of the Year, won a Women’s College World Series in 2019 with the Bruins, was the WCWS Most Outstanding Player that same year, and was a two-time USA Softball as well as NFCA College Player of the Year.
Today, along with her continued success in her playing career, Garcia has also coached at UC San Diego following a stint at San Diego State.
But all of this tremendous success came after a very scary time in her playing career back in her high school days at Highland High in Palmdale, Calif. It was in the Summer of 2015 when the young Rachel was a senior and playing in the CIF Southern Section Div. IV championship game.
Just two weeks away from being named the 2015 Gatorade National Player of the Year, she pitched a masterpiece, but saw her team lose a heartbreaker in extra innings after she went down with a serious injury.
Here’s the look back at that fateful game and its after-effects when we all worried about the softball future of Rachel… and thankfully, in time, learned that the softball giant had what it’d take to battle back bigger and better than ever.
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The Tragic Fall–and Triumphant Return—of UCLA’s Rachel Garcia
Game story originally posted June 7, 2015; recap published May 20, 2021.
For all that Rachel Garcia has achieved in her storied softball career, both in college and internationally, it may be a surprise to many that at one point in her career there were rumors that Rachel might not ever be able to pitch again.
I was there on the night that the high school senior was on the top of her game as she was on the verge of winning a high school championship for her Highland High team out of Palmdale, California.
It was June 6, 2015 at Manning Stadium in Bill Barber Park, Irvine, California and Rachel and her team were in a battle with Torrance High for the CIF Southern Section Div. IV title. The future Bruin star was all but unhittable… the problem was, neither team could score a run.
The game went into the 12th inning and Rachel had struck out 24 batters when she threw a pitch and collapsed to the ground as the batter singled with a runner on second.
She had come down awkwardly on her left knee and the sharp pain made her collapse. Still, many didn’t see her fall as the potential game-winning runner was thrown out at the plate and the game continued into the 13th inning.
“Right when I landed on my knee, it hurt and I went down,” Rachel would tell me later. “It hurt for a second, but I was able to walk on it and everything seemed to be fine.”
She even led off the top of the 13th with a single and ran down the first baseline looking no worse for wear.
“It didn’t hurt when I got the hit,” she said. “I didn’t feel any pain at all.
*** Scroll down to read more about that fateful night, which was about to get scarier… all in front of her future UCLA coaches Kelly Inouye-Perez and Lisa Fernandez!
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