UCLA Softball: Rachel Garcia solidifies her legacy by winning the Honda Cup

UCLA softball’s Rachel Garcia continues to win all the awards as she was honored with both the Honda Cup and the Collegiate Women Athlete of the Year Award on Monday evening.

Rachel Garcia is winning at everything, and there is no one more deserving. This season has been an illustrious one for UCLA softball, not just because the Bruins won their 13th national championship, but because of how they captured that championship.

Though this was a team effort, a big part of that team was Rachel Garcia who has now added a Honda Cup and the Collegiate Woman Athlete of the Year Award to her collection.

This is in addition to winning the 2019 Honda Sports Award, the Schutt Sports/NFCA D1 Pitcher of the Year Award, the USA Player of the Year Award, the ESPNW Player of the Year Award as well as the Pac-12 Player and Pitcher of the Year Award. Impressive.

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Garcia was honored on Monday evening at USC’s Galen Center in a televised event. She is the third UCLA softball player to win the Honda Cup after Lisa Fernandez (1993) and Natasha Watley (2003). She is the fifth Bruin to win it behind Ann Meyers (1978) and Jackie Joyner-Kersee (1985).

UCLA was one of the best teams from the start of the season to the end as they went 56-6, won the Pac-12 Championship as well and brought home UCLA’s 118th championship overall.

The Bruins played at a high level heading into the postseason as the #2 ranked team. In the 11 games they played in the NCAA Tournament, they only lost one.

UCLA had begun the Women’s College World Series with wins against Minnesota and Pac-12 foes Arizona and Washington which propelled them in the final series with Oklahoma. In the best of three series, UCLA opened with a beat down of the Sooners, 16-3 win. The second game was closer but just as exciting as UCLA got the 5-4 win. Garcia started in every one of those games.

This season, Garcia had the third-best ERA in the nation (1.01), was 3rd in strikeouts per seven innings (10.7), 4th in strikeout-to-walk ratio (7.67), and 15th in total strikeouts (253).

https://twitter.com/UCLAAthletics/status/1143338516551622656

With all of that under her belt, there is no doubt that she has solidified herself as a UCLA legend and will surely lock up an induction into the UCLA Athletics Hall of Fame. Congratulations, Rachel!