From travel team ball through high school and into college,
Paige Rauch's softball skills have regularly placed her front and center at crunch time. Be it at the plate as an impact bat, or in the center circle as a top-tier pitcher, the Villanova sophomore's gifts have helped make her comfortable in most every athletic moment.
Save for perhaps the one she and her teammates found themselves in on Sunday afternoon.
The heavy rains that fell in the Delaware Valley washed out the BIG EAST regular season finale the Wildcats were scheduled to host against DePaul. The game would not be made up – the teams had split a doubleheader on Saturday. That meant the Wildcats hopes of advancing to the 2019 BIG EAST Tournament were in the hands of league rivals whose games would be played that day.
Rauch and the rest of the 'Cats could only stare into their digital devices while the bats and gloves remained in storage.
A Seton Hall win at Creighton would have lifted the Pirates past the Wildcats (28-23 overall, 9-8 BIG EAST) into the fourth and final slot in this weekend's tournament in Rosemont, Ill.
As the raindrops fell, Rauch and teammate
Angela Giampolo followed the game in Omaha.
"We were going back and forth," Rauch recalled. "At times we were nervous, at other times excited. We just really wanted our season to continue."
A 9-7 Bluejays' victory ended the suspense. The Wildcats were headed back to the BIG EAST Tournament in the first season in the tenure of
Bridget Orchard, who succeeded retired head coach Maria DiBernardi last June after a long run of coaching success at Fordham.
The Wildcats will meet No. 1 seed St. John's in a semifinal Friday at 1 p.m. in suburban Chicago.
"I think we're in a great situation," stated Orchard. "I feel like we're playing our best ball right now."
Rauch is a significant reason that is so. In her second season of college softball – and first as a Wildcat – she established herself as a dominant BIG EAST performer in two distinctly different phases of the game. She'll carry a .443 batting average, 17 home runs and 48 runs batted in with her into the postseason. On the mound, she has posted a 12-11 record while sporting a 2.71 earned run average.
In an age where athletes are often encouraged to zero in on a specialty, Rauch is a throwback who excels as both facets.
"It's rare because it's hard to do." Orchard said. "You have to do so much extra work at both. Paige comes early and stays late. She's able to do it because she's so athletic and puts the work in."
Orchard came to Villanova as a standout infielder in 1993 from Binghamton, N.Y. and has stayed connected to her western New York State roots in the years since. Those ties helped her recruit Becca Griswold to Fordham from Windsor, N.Y. in 2010.
"Becca was a neighbor and good friend of the Rauch family," said Orchard. "Paige and her mom would come to our games when she was eight or nine to cheer for Becca. We've got pictures somewhere of Paige at age 10 at the Fordham softball camp."
By that point,
Paige Rauch was already becoming a softball prodigy. After being introduced to the game by her parents, Charles and Mari, she had quickly developed an affinity for it and stamped herself as a player to watch.
"I was the type of kid who was always playing sports," she recalls. "At first, I didn't know what one I wanted to play – I was constantly hopping from soccer practice to field hockey practice to basketball. I even did gymnastics."
The success she enjoyed on the diamond though, began to tilt the field in favor of softball. She quickly outpaced her age group peers.
"They wouldn't let me play junior softball at one point because they were afraid I was going to hurt someone," she recalls with a smile. "They pushed me up to senior softball."
No matter. She thrived there too.
"The feeling on the field is, for me, like no other," Rauch said. "Nothing made me feel like playing softball did. And that's what really sparked my interest in playing travel ball."
She joined her first travel team in grade school. Admittedly, she didn't fully grasp then that there would be sacrifices accompanying the chance to play the game at a high level. Birthday party invitations and summer barbecues could seldom be wedged into a schedule packed with school and softball.
"It was a challenge at first," she says.
She adapted, though, and continued to out-perform her age peers at every turn. Her parents were there throughout the journey, providing the rides and making sacrifices of their own for their daughter.
"We joined a really high-level travel ball organization called the Conklin Raiders where my parents were spending thousands of dollars a year," states Rauch. "But playing with older girls and maturing really helped me as a player."
By the time she was a freshman at Windsor High School, Rauch was on Conklin's Gold team traveling as far as Colorado to play against squads with players three or four years older than her.
College coaches began making their interest known. Orchard was among the first to do so, offering Rauch the chance to play at Fordham during the latter's sophomore year of high school. Rauch quickly accepted.
"You always want to feel wanted in the recruiting process and I got that feeling from Coach Orchard from the beginning," Rauch recalled. "Her interest was just really special to me. It was a no-brainer to go somewhere where you were wanted and had a chance to play."
The wait to get to college sometimes seemed interminable to Rauch, who nonetheless was part of state high school championships at Windsor and Binghamton high schools.
At Fordham in the fall of '17 Rauch quickly settled in, acclimating herself as the team went through its fall scrimmage schedule. But when the regular season began, she immediately sensed a different vibe.
"In the fall you're playing local teams, sometimes you're scrimmaging Division II teams and you tell yourself this is somewhat like travel ball," Rauch recalls of that period. "Our first regular season weekend, we (traveled to) UCLA. I was just in awe of it. That first weekend really put me into my place."
The anxiety passed quickly. By year's end, Rauch had earned Atlantic 10 Rookie of the Year honors, blasting 16 home runs to go with 44 RBI. She was named first team all-Atlantic Ten as a position player and pitcher (1.66 ERA). The Rams captured the A-10 championship and advanced to the NCAA Tournament.
It was a most successful debut.
On June 1, however, Rauch's path took an unexpected turn with the announcement that, after 17 seasons in the Bronx, Orchard would be returning to her alma mater as its head coach.
"It's almost like, 'what do I do now?'," Rauch recalls. "You're around a coach for so long. All throughout the recruiting process I saw other kids filling out applications, trying to figure out where they were going to college. I always knew where I was going because I had committed to Coach Orchard and couldn't wait to get there."
When the dust settled, Rauch quickly determined that she wanted a relationship that had been so central to her softball life to continue. She submitted the paperwork to transfer to Villanova where she would retain three years of eligibility.
"We were so excited when she said she wanted to be at Villanova," Orchard said. "Obviously Paige is a talented player. But I was more excited about the character she would be bringing with her. She's such a hard worker, she's gritty and wants to win. Everyone on the team sees the work she puts in.
"Paige just does everything the right way."
For Rauch, the transition to her new University felt right from the outset.
"I kind of fell in love with Villanova as soon as I stepped on campus," Rauch stated.
As first impressions go, it would be hard to improve on the one Rauch made in her Villanova debut against Iowa in the regular season opener on Feb. 15 in Orlando., Fla. She blasted her first home run in the Blue and White and earned the win with seven innings pitched and zero earned runs surrendered in a 4-2 win over the Hawkeyes.
"That was important to me because I wanted to prove to my teammates that I'm here to help the team," Rauch said. "I'm not going to do it all. I'm here to help you guys. Getting that comfort level and letting them know I need them was huge.
"That was Coach Orchard's first win and it was a huge outcome for all of us. It helped us settle in with one another."
Rauch would go on to set the Villanova single season home run record. One of the most memorable of her blasts was a no-doubt walk-off special to seal a 5-2 come from behind victory over Lehigh on May 1.
Now, the task at hand is this weekend's tournament just down the road from O'Hare airport.
"I think right now we're really at our peak," Rauch said. "We've been able to come from behind lately and that's a sign of our growth. I think we're going to do good things as a team."
With Villanova's spot secured by virtue of Sunday's results, the Wildcats have earned themselves an opportunity. Rauch looms as a central figure in both the pitching circle and batters' box. Her left-handed bat will be prominent in the lineup as she typically handles an assignment at first base or in the outfield when not in the center circle.
It's a spot she has, in many respects, been prepping for most of her life.
"I think the thing that Paige has brought to us is competitiveness," notes Orchard. "The drive, the grit – she's a winner.
"Paige is confident, and her confidence comes from her preparation. I think the other girls feed off that swagger."
Rauch – named BIG EAST Player of the Year on Wednesday – has offered the Wildcats a jolt of energy and power in 2019. Now she and her teammates look to author a new chapter in the annals of a Villanova softball program that has not yet claimed a BIG EAST Tournament title.
A Paige-turner?
It would be that and more.
