COLLEGE SOFTBALL: HORSEHEADS GRAD CITES HEADED TO NATIONALS WITH VILLANOVA (2022-05-16)

Southern Tier Sports Report
Horseheads graduate Tess Cites and the Villanova softball team opens play in the Division I softball championship on Friday.

Villanova is headed to the Orlando Regional for a matchup with No. 16 overall seed UCF (46-12) at 6 p.m. on Friday.

The four-team regional hosted by UCA also includes Michigan (36-16) and South Dakota State (40-11). The games will be played Friday through Sunday to see who will advance to next week’s super regional.

Cites started all three Big East Tournament games, a 2-0 win over Butler, a 1-0 eight-inning win over DePaul and a 3-0 win over UConn. Cites had hits in the games against Butler and DePaul.

Just over 24 hours after winning their second consecutive BIG EAST title, the Wildcats now know their destination for the program's second straight appearance in an NCAA regional. Villanova is one of the hottest teams in the country with 22 wins in its last 27 games, including three straight shutout victories to win the BIG EAST Championship in Rosemont, Ill. this past weekend. Head coach Bridget Orchard and her Wildcats became the third BIG EAST champion in the 33-year history of the conference tournament to not allow a single run during the championship.
 
Friday's game against UCF can be seen live on ESPN+ and it will be the second game of the day in Orlando following an earlier contest between Michigan and South Dakota State that gets underway at 3:30 p.m. Competition at each of the 16 regional sites on the first weekend of the Division I Softball Championship is double elimination with a similar schedule structure as the one Villanova coasted through at the BIG EAST Championship this weekend. The winners and losers of Friday's games will face each other on Saturday, with game times and TV information to be announced as the games progress.
 
One thing is certain for the Wildcats and it is that their trip to Orlando will be a much shorter one than the team's travel to their first-ever NCAA regional last year. Villanova went to Tucson, Ariz. last season and played three games on the West coast, including an elimination contest against Ole Miss which ended after 2 a.m. Eastern time on the second day of competition. The Wildcats will not have to cross any time zones this time around, and they will head to a relatively familiar site in UCF.
 
Villanova has played in regular season tournaments hosted by the Knights on eight previous occasions and most recently in 2020 when it competed in the Knights Classic. The Wildcats are 3-5 all-time against UCF, with seven of the eight games and all three victories coming on the Knights home field. The most recent of the eight previous meetings came in 2020 when UCF tallied a 7-3 victory. Villanova is 1-1 against South Dakota State with games played in 2012 and 2015, and has an 0-2 all-time record against Michigan with each of the games taking place during the 2011 season.
 
This is the second NCAA regional appearance for the Wildcats and the 10th for Orchard, who previously guided Fordham to eight national postseason appearances from 2010-18. All 10 of Orchard's trips to an NCAA regional have been to different locations spanning nine different states. She previously went to Florida for a regional hosted by Florida State with Fordham in 2014. Orchard's teams have won at least one game in regional action six of her nine previous NCAA appearances.
 
Another Section 4 star, Binghamton graduate Paige Rauch, became the first player in Big East history to be named the Most Outstanding Player at the conference tournament in consecutive years. She is a first-team All-Big East deletions or the third straight year and during the Big East Championship pitched 20 consecutive scoreless innings to go with reaching base four times in 10 plate appearances, including a pair of doubles and two runs scored. Rauch holds 15 school records during her Wildcats career, including eighth career records and seven single-season marks.

Cites hit .239 this year with two home runs and 10 RBI, scoring 11 runs on the year. She had a .393 on-base percentage this year.

Rauch hit .306 with 10 home runs, 42 runs and 34 RBI this season. On the mound she was 17-6 with a 2.19 ERA in 147 1/3 innings, striking out 166.
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PHOTO COURTESY OF VILLANOVA ATHLETICS. STORY COURTESY OF VILLANOVA ATHLETICS.