High school softball pitcher Rachel Garcia fires perfect game, strikes out 23 -- and loses

Highland (Palmdale, Calif.) senior pitcher and UCLA-bound Rachel Garcia pitched a perfect game, struck out 23 batters in eight innings — and lost.

How is that even possible? One reaches base and the perfect game is over. Right?

The international tiebreaker (also known as the California tiebreaker) automatically puts a runner at second base to start each inning once the game goes into extra frames, and in this case, Garcia, who struck out the game's first 18 batters, unfurled a wild pitch that advanced the runner to third. Catcher Elyssa Bramer's ensuing wild throw on the attempt allowed Sara Stroud to score the winning run for Camarillo, which ended up winning 1-0.

Garcia never allowed a base runner and only one batter hit the ball, a weak grounder to second. Yet she lost.

Highland (17-2) didn't score in the eighth, making a winner out of tournament MVP Emily Orosco, who struck out 16 and allowed just two hits.

"It's pretty tough obviously," Garcia told Los Angeles Daily News reporter Tony Ciniglio. "We're just going to learn from it and go on to the next game."

Of her game, Garcia said she new after the first two innings she had good stuff. "All my pitches felt good: curve, rise and drop."

Garcia is one of the nation's top pitchers. The 5-foot-6 senior is 17-2 this season with 256 strikeouts in 113 innings and a 0.31 ERA. In her four-year career, she's 78-13 with 1,153 strikeouts in 539 innings and a 0.53 ERA. She was recently featured on the MaxPreps Softball Player of the Year watch list, and she was chosen for the Medium Schools and Underclass All-American Teams each of the last two seasons.

Highland coach Dan Morrow said: "Today was bitter. That last inning was bitter. But it’s like they say. Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”