NEW YORK—Coming off a thrilling victory in its season opener this weekend the Villanova men's lacrosse team cleaned up in BIG EAST weekly awards on Monday afternoon. The lone conference team to win a game during the past week, the Wildcats had four student-athletes recognized by the conference for their performances in the 14-12 win over Penn State. This week is the first time ever that Villanova has had four players earn BIG EAST recognition in the same week.
 
Fifth year attackman Patrick Daly (Shrewsbury, Mass.) was named the BIG EAST Attack Player of the Week and fellow graduate student Will Vitton (Summit, N.J.) was chosen as the BIG EAST Defensive Player of the Week. After a strong outing in his collegiate debut freshman defenseman David Evanchick (Darien, Conn.) earned BIG EAST Freshman of the Week honors, while fifth year midfielder Matt Campbell (Madison, N.J.) earned a weekly Honor Roll spot.
 
Late goals by Daly – who scored the game-winner with 3:03 remaining – and Campbell lifted the Wildcats to their fifth win in the past eight meetings against the in-state rival Nittany Lions. Villanova won its season opener against Penn State for the second straight year and is the first team receiving votes outside the top 20 in this week's national polls.
 
Daly tallied a game-high five points with four goals and one assist in the weekend win. It was his seventh career game with at least five points and none were bigger than his ninth career game-winning goal in the closing minutes. The game was tied on six occasions, including at 12-12 after a three-goal run by the Nittany Lions midway through the final period. Daly, who scored on all four of his shots in the game, took a pass from Austin Fraser and put the Wildcats ahead to stay with 3:03 left in the contest.
 
Villanova got a huge performance from Vitton who made 18 saves in the win. The performance was one off Vitton's career high for saves in a game and was tied for the seventh-highest total in Division I over the past week. Vitton recorded nine saves in both halves, including five in the fourth quarter alone and his final stop of the day in the final minute of the game to preserve a late Wildcats lead. He finished the game with a .600 save percentage and tallied the eighth-most saves (tied) in a game in school history.
 
Evanchick made his collegiate debut against the Nittany Lions and contributed to the victory with two caused turnovers and one ground ball. He was one of four Wildcats who had two caused turnovers in the contest and his lone ground ball created the Villanova possession which led to the game-winning goal in the fourth quarter. There were just over four minutes remaining when Evanchick scooped up a loose ball off a Penn State turnover. The Wildcats held possession until Daly's game-winning score moments later.
 
Sunday's game was bookended by Campbell who scored Villanova's first goal of the season just 37 seconds into the contest and added the final tally of the day with 1:44 remaining. He tallied four goals in all, marking his 12^th career game with at least four scores. Campbell led all players in the game with 12 shots, including seven shots on goal, and he added two ground balls and a caused turnover to his stat line.
 
Campbell is steadily moving up on the Wildcats career statistical lists. He is now fourth in the Villanova record book with 121 career goals and broke out of a tie for sixth place in points, now solely holding that spot with 172 for his career. Campbell ranks third among all active Division I players in career goals and is fifth in points.
 
The Wildcats will play a second straight home game this coming week as they host No. 5 Yale on Sunday at 12 p.m. in the opener of a Villanova lacrosse doubleheader. Later in the day the Wildcats women's lacrosse team plays its home opener against Saint Joseph's at 3:30 p.m.