Villanova Univeristy Athletics

Chelsea Plimpton is in her fourth season as the Villanova pitching coach in 2023. She played for Wildcats head coach Bridget Orchard at Fordham and came to the Wildcats after three successful seasons as the pitching coach at Massachusetts from 2017-19.
 
The 2022 season saw a second straight conference championship for Villanova, sending the program to another NCAA regional. During the 2021 season Plimpton and the Villanova coaching staff helped the program win its first-ever BIG EAST title and advance to an NCAA regional for the first time in school history. The Wildcats finished the season with a 37-15 overall record and went 15-2 in regular season BIG EAST play to set a single-season program record with an .882 conference winning percentage. Villanova gave up just 43 runs in 17 conference games and outscored the opposition by an average of better than 3.6 runs per game.
 
The 2021 season was a superb one statistically for the Wildcats, who led the BIG EAST Conference with 11 shutouts, 286 strikeouts and most importantly with 37 victories. Senior pitcher/utility Paige Rauch was a dominant force and made history as the first BIG EAST player ever to be named the league’s Player of the Year and Pitcher of the Year in the same season. Rauch set a single-season Villanova record with nine shutouts and recorded the ninth 20-win season in school history with a 21-4 record and a 2.12 ERA.
 
Rauch became the second player and first pitcher in program history to be an All-American when she was named to the NFCA All-America third team. She was also a first team All-BIG EAST and NFCA Mideast All-Region selection. Rauch had 189 strikeouts and a 1.05 WHIP for the 2021 season. She went 8-0 with a 1.27 ERA, seven complete games and five shutouts in conference play and then remarkably pitched 28 of 35 innings and faced 123 batters overs three days in the BIG EAST Championship. She was 3-0 with a 2.50 ERA in the conference tournament and was named to Most Outstanding Player of the Championship.
 
The success for Villanova pitchers last season did not end with Rauch, as senior Anissa Amarillas had a 7-3 record in 24 appearances and was the winning pitcher in the BIG EAST championship game. Junior pitcher Sara Kennedy had her best outings against BIG EAST opponents last year, going 3-0 with a 1.91 ERA in four regular season appearances versus league foes. In addition, freshman pitcher Caroline Pellicano was 3-1 with a 1.88 ERA in 13 relief appearances in her collegiate rookie campaign.
 
In her first season with the Wildcats in 2020, Plimpton helped Rauch go 12-4 with a 2.25 ERA and nine complete games during an abbreviated 27-game campaign. Rauch held opponents to a .217 batting average against her and had 97 strikeouts in 90 1/3 innings pitched before the season was halted.
 
Plimpton spent three seasons at UMass where she helped the Minutewomen go 90-60 from 2017-19, including a 21-0 mark in Atlantic 10 play during the 2018 season. That year she worked with Atlantic 10 Pitcher of the Year in freshman Kiara Oliver who won the league’s pitching triple crown with 18 wins, 173 strikeouts and a 2.37 ERA. Oliver was a second team NFCA All-Region selection. As a sophomore one year later, Oliver went 5-1 with a 1.43 ERA in league play and was a second team All-Atlantic 10 selection. Rookie pitcher Kenadee Rausch won five games in 2019 and was named to the Atlantic 10 All-Rookie squad.
 
During her own collegiate playing career Plimpton played for Orchard at Fordham from 2009-11. She was a member of the Rams 2010 and 2011 teams which advanced to NCAA regionals. Plimpton ranked third in school history in strikeouts and shutouts and was part of a pitching staff which led the entire nation in ERA with a 1.34 mark for the season. She went 11-2 with a 1.58 ERA in 93 1/3 innings in 2010, then recorded 17 wins with 149 strikeouts and a 2.26 ERA as a senior in 2011. She began her collegiate career at St. John’s and pitched 33 1/3 innings as a freshman during the 2007 season.
 
Plimpton began her coaching career as an assistant coach at St. Lawrence during the 2011-12 academic year. She went on to hold assistant coaching positions at Marist (2012), Fordham (2013) and Towson (2014-16) before her stint at Massachusetts.
 
Plimpton graduated from Fordham with a degree in Communication in 2011.