High school softballer Mia Faieta struck out all 21 batters she faced in a perfect game
Strikeouts may be on the rise across the Major Leagues, but they've got nothing on high school softball pitcher Mia Faieta. Pitching for Cedar Grove High School against North Warren in the New Jersey Section 1, Group 1 semifinals, the sophomore right-hander not only retired all 21 batters she faced, but she struck out every single one of them.
Mia Faieta completes the PERFECT perfect game: 21 up, 21 strikeouts and @CedarGroveSB beats North Warren, 4-0, in the N1, G1 semifinals pic.twitter.com/wFMZrlhpFv
— Sean Reilly (@SeanReillyHS) May 26, 2017
If you need another way of looking at it, just gaze at this scorecard. That's 18 swinging strikeouts:
Don't see a scorebook look like this very often, but it happened today courtesy of Mia Faieta of @CedarGroveSB pic.twitter.com/hhy6fCYWxt
— Sean Reilly (@SeanReillyHS) May 26, 2017
And here's strikeout No. 21:
Mia Faieta completes the PERFECT perfect game: 21 up, 21 strikeouts and @CedarGroveSB beats North Warren, 4-0, in the N1, G1 semifinals pic.twitter.com/wFMZrlhpFv
— Sean Reilly (@SeanReillyHS) May 26, 2017
"I've never witnessed anything like that before," Cedar Grove head coach Nicole Velardi told the Bergen Record. "She really held it together. We didn't realize until the last inning that she was doing it."
Amazingly enough, this isn't even the first time Faieta has pulled something like this off: Back on May 17, she struck out all 15 batters she faced in a mercy rule-shortened five-inning contest. The outing ran her strikeout total to 321 on the season. For comparison's sake, the last Major Leaguer to strike out that many in a season was Randy Johnson in 2002.
She'll try to add to those totals in the sectional finals on Tuesday.
