ROSEMONT, Ill.—Who knew it could be as simple as 3-0? Last year Villanova was the hunter searching for its first BIG EAST title and it had to win four straight games after losing its opening contest at the conference championship. This year the Wildcats were the hunted with a target on their backs and they won three straight games without allowing a single run to repeat as champions.
 
"It was stressful," fourth-year Villanova head coach Bridget Orchard said of the Wildcats playing as the defending champions compared to last year. "I think the experience [of last year] is actually what helped us. It felt good to have had that experience and they came out ready to go today."
 
Graduate pitcher Paige Rauch (Windsor, N.Y.) was named the Most Outstanding Player of the 2022 BIG EAST Softball Championship Presented by JEEP as the #3 seed Villanova (32-22) won its second straight conference title with a 3-0 win over top-seed Connecticut (38-18) at the Parkway Bank Sports Complex just a few minutes after noon on Championship Saturday.
 
Rauch is the sixth player in the history of the BIG EAST Championship to win two Most Outstanding Player awards and she becomes the first since Jenna Caira of Syracuse in 2010-11 to be a winner in consecutive years. Joining Rauch on the BIG EAST Championship All-Tournament Team were junior third baseman Chloe Smith (Sacramento, Calif.), sophomore left fielder Tess Cites (Horseheads, N.Y.) and freshman right fielder Kelsey White (Taunton, Mass.).
 
What a run it was for the Wildcats, who are the third champion in the 33-year history of the BIG EAST Championship to not allow a run in the entire tournament. Villanova defeated #2 seed Butler, 2-0, in the quarterfinals on Thursday afternoon and shut out #4 seed DePaul in a 1-0 thriller in eight innings on Friday in the semifinals. That set up a rematch with the Huskies in Saturday's championship game, with Connecticut needing two wins to win a title and the Wildcats just one.
 
It was the exact same scenario, with a reversal of roles, as last season when Villanova defeated the Huskies twice on their home field to win their first-ever conference title. In the first championship game rematch since 2010-11 (Syracuse-Louisville), the Wildcats scored all three of their runs on one swing of the bat from White in the top of the first inning and then continued its remarkable run of scoreless innings in the field to earn the chance for a repeat celebration.
 
"It's a credit to all the girls," Orchard said of the team's championship performance this weekend. "It's what they do together on and off the field. I think the adversity we had earlier in the season really helped us. We didn't know there would be a lot of ups. We had a lot of downs and getting through that got us here today. They knew we had been through everything. We faced really good teams, had tough losses and some bad breaks.  The girls feed off each other. They feed off each other's energy and they really do a great job of picking each other up after a mistake."
 
Senior pitcher Sara Kennedy (Newtown, Conn.) demonstrated the poise shown by the entire Wildcats squad as she calmly jogged a few steps to her left, scooped up a ground ball and flipped it to first for the final out. Kennedy pitched in the BIG EAST title game as a freshman on this same field back in 2019 and recorded the final six outs on Saturday to close out a championship run as a senior. She came on in relief of Rauch (17-6, 2.19 ERA), who pitched 20 consecutive scoreless innings in the tournament in a supernova performance that shined brightly even by her own lofty standards.
 
A team that is in as steady of a groove as Villanova – winners of 22 of its last 27 games dating back to the final week of March – still can use a few fortunate bounces here and there during a grueling conference championship run. One fortunate bounce on the first batted ball of the championship game got the Wildcats started; another later in the top of the first inning had Villanova on its way to a trophy.
 
White came up to bat in the first inning with two outs and the Wildcats suddenly pressing after loading the bases with nobody out but failing to capitalize on that scoring opportunity in successive plate appearances. The first-year right fielder and pitcher swung and missed at the first two pitches she saw from Huskies starting pitcher Meghan O'Neil (13-8, 2.84 ERA), then took the next two offerings to even the count at 2-2. She got a good swing on the fifth pitch of the at-bat and drove it down the left field line where it fell just foul, appearing to just miss nicking the painted line and falling in foul territory.
 
So it was another 2-2 pitch from O'Neil to White and this time the emerging Villanova up-and-comer straightened out her swing and laced a well-struck single into left field to open – and ultimately close – the scoring in the game. Graduate second baseman Angela Giampolo (East Windsor, N.J.) and Rauch were going to score easily on White's single, but the ball got away from the Connecticut left fielder and rolled to the wall as Smith raced around the bases from first to score a third run. Orchard, coaching at third base, and the Wildcats dugout on the first base line, erupted into a frenzy as they watched the three runs cross the plate and give Villanova the early momentum.
 
"They pick each other up," Orchard reiterated about her team. "That happened with a big hit in the first inning. Kelsey getting up there with two outs, obviously that was huge."  
 
Giampolo was plunked on the very first pitch of the game by O'Neil, who then proceeded to walk Rauch on four pitches to get the Wildcats thinking about a big inning. Smith came up to bat and bounced a 1-2 pitch to shortstop that was not fielded cleanly. All three runners were safe on the error, but O'Neil struck out senior shortstop Megan Kern (Royersford, Pa.) and got junior catcher Ally Jones (Brielle, N.J.) to pop up along the first base line for the second out. Enter White, who pitched a complete game in a win over Connecticut on the final day of the regular season just six days earlier and more than made up for a dropped fly ball in right field in Friday's semifinal win with her big hit and a nice running catch in the championship game.
 
Staked to an immediate lead, the question became how Rauch would pitch with the lead in her third straight day of work. When she retired the Huskies in order on 12 pitches in the bottom of the first inning, it gave a pretty good indication of the answer to that question. Rauch allowed a leadoff double to cleanup hitter Jana Sanden in the bottom of the second inning and walked Erika Coreth to start the third, but neither runner ever advanced any further on the bases. Senior center fielder Sydney Hayes (Douglassville, Pa.) tracked down a long fly ball for the second out in the third inning with Connecticut leadoff batter Briana Marcelino at the plate, then White raced in on a sinking liner to right field to make a nice play on a ball off the bat of Reese Guevarra for the final out.
 
Villanova could start to taste the championship after two sequences in the bottom of the fourth and fifth innings. With a runner at first and two outs in the fourth Huskies freshman Rosie Garcia put together a marathon at-bat against Rauch, who started to show the slightest signs of fatigue with Connecticut starting to extend their plate appearances deeper into counts against her. Garcia was in a quick 1-2 hole but fouled off five of the next six pitches and eventually took a close ball on the outside corner to run the count full. Rauch delivered the 11^th pitch of the plate appearance and got a called third strike for the final out, showing rare emotion with an emphatic pump of her fist on the strikeout.
 
In the fifth inning Coreth lined a hard single through the left side with one out, but Rauch wore down Aziah James and froze her on a 3-2 pitch for another called third strike before getting Marcelino to fly out to right for the final out.
 
The plate appearance by Marcelino turned out to be the final one against Rauch, as Kennedy entered to start the bottom of the sixth inning. It was a gutsy call by Orchard to relieve Rauch after 20 scoreless innings, but it was the right one. Kennedy recorded groundball outs to second base on each of the first two pitches she threw, then struck out Sanden on four pitches to get out of the six inning with only six pitches thrown. Garcia singled with one out in the bottom of the seventh, but Olivia Sappington grounded out for the second out and Coreth bounced a ball up the first base line which Kennedy fielded for the final out.
 
Villanova secured the automatic berth from the BIG EAST to the Division I Softball Championship and will learn where it is headed on Sunday night during a live selection show which can be seen at 7 p.m. on ESPN2.