NEW YORK—Senior shortstop Megan Kern (Royersford, Pa.) and graduate pitcher/utility Paige Rauch (Windsor, N.Y.) swept the BIG EAST weekly awards which were announced by the conference office on Monday afternoon. Kern was selected as the BIG EAST Player of the Week for the first time in her career and Rauch earned Pitcher of the Week honors for the ninth time. It is the 24^th week in all since joining Villanova in 2019 that Rauch has merited weekly conference recognition.
 
Both players starred for the Wildcats in a 4-0 week at the Pirate Invitational hosted by East Carolina. Villanova got back to .500 on the season with a 7-7 mark after two wins over Gardner-Webb and one each against the host Pirates and Fairleigh Dickinson. This is the 28^th time out of 32 possible weeks since the beginning of the 2019 season that the Wildcats have earned at least one weekly BIG EAST honor. Last season Villanova swept the Player and Pitcher of the Week awards three times.
 
Kern was unstoppable at the plate during the tournament at East Carolina, hitting three home runs and reaching base safely in 12 of her 16 plate appearances. She slashed .667/.750/1.583 for the week, had five extra-base hits and drove in seven runs while extending her current hitting streak to a career-best 12 games. Kern was 8-for-12 in the tournament, drew four walks while only striking out once and added to her all-around play with flawless defense at shortstop where she recorded five putouts, six assists and no errors over four games.
 
Consecutive games against Gardner-Webb and Fairleigh Dickinson on Saturday showed what Kern is capable of when she is firing on all cylinders. She notched her first career multi-homer game in an 8-6 win versus the Bulldogs, hitting a two-run shot to open the scoring in the first inning and later a solo shot in the top of the sixth. Later the day in a 3-1 win over the Knights she broke a 1-1 tie in the top of the seventh inning with a go-ahead and eventual game-winning two-run homer. Kern went 3-for-4 in the game.
 
Earlier in the tournament Kern reached base in all four of her plate appearances in a 1-0 win over Gardner-Webb in the first game of the tournament. She hit her third double of the season in her only official at-bat and drew a career-high three walks in the contest. In a 7-3 win over host East Carolina she went 2-for-4 with another double and two runs batted in.
 
Rauch helped Villanova go 4-0 with her contributions both in the pitchers' circle and at the plate. In two starts in the circle she went 2-0 with a 0.50 ERA and a 0.71 WHIP while holding opposing batters to a miniscule .125 batting average (6-for-48) against her. Rauch pitched a two-hit shutout in a 1-0 win over Gardner-Webb on Friday, carrying a no-hitter into the sixth inning and pitching the entire game in a scoreless duel before the Wildcats won with a walk-off run in the bottom of the seventh inning. It was the first shutout this season and 16^th of Rauch's collegiate career (14^th at Villanova).
 
Later in the weekend Rauch tied a career-high with 13 strikeouts in a 3-1 win over Fairleigh Dickinson. She notched her 12^th career game and first this season with 10+ strikeouts, kept the Knights off the scoreboard until the sixth inning and backed the low-scoring affair with a long solo home run that gave the Wildcats the lead in the top of the first inning. Rauch was 4-for-14 (.286) at the plate during the weekend and hit two home runs to post a .714 slugging percentage across four games. She scored five runs and drove in three while walking twice and stealing two bases.
 
Villanova is in the middle of an extended Spring Break trip to North Carolina and will return to action on Tuesday evening for a 5 p.m. game at North Carolina State.