Month: April 2020

This article originally appeared in The Fordham Ram in February 2020.

Fordham Women’s Basketball followed a script most teams would envy against the University of Massachusetts on Saturday: build a lead, hold on to that lead in the second half and make free throws down the stretch to earn a victory. Fordham was especially clutch in the finish of Saturday’s game, making all but one of its 12 free throw attempts in the fourth quarter. The Rams shot an astounding 20-22 on the afternoon at the free throw line. As it turned out, Fordham needed every single one of those points.

The Rams came out of Amherst with a 69-64 victory on Saturday afternoon in a game in which they led for all but 57 seconds. Fordham built a 15-point lead by halftime and led by as many as 16 in the third quarter, but a late UMass comeback kept the home team in it until the game ended.

After UMass cut the lead to just five, Fordham’s three captains — junior Kendell Heremaia, redshirt junior Bre Cavanaugh and sophomore Kaitlyn Downey — made nine out of 10 free throws in the final 30 seconds to keep the Minutewomen at bay.

Fordham had been under siege in the second half by UMass and its leading scorer, junior Sam Breen. Breen finished the game with 21 points on 8-25 shooting from the field. Breen shot just 2-11 in the first half.

“When you’re on the road, that’s gonna happen,” Fordham coach Stephanie Gaitley said. “It’s just part of the game. I thought our kids made some critical mistakes, our shot selection became questionable, and then we gave some three-point plays, but at the end of the day, we did what we needed to do. We came here and got the win.”

The win is particularly important — and impressive — for Fordham in Atlantic 10 play. The Rams and Minutewomen entered Saturday effectively tied in the A-10 standings. Fordham was 6-3 while UMass was 6-4.

With this win and the weekend’s other results, Fordham moved into sole possession of third place in the conference while UMass stumbled back towards the middle of the pack.

“Separation is huge,” Gaitley said. “Every game is huge, it doesn’t matter who it is, but the one thing we have struggled with is winning on the road, and I think this was a great shot in the arm for us.”

Fordham was led by the usual suspects in the victory. Cavanaugh dropped 21 points, including a perfect 10-10 performance from the foul line. Her performance on Saturday continued her bonkers play since the turn of the calendar; Cavanaugh has averaged just over 22 points per game in 10 conference games, and in total, she has scored 41 more points than the conference’s second-leading scorer, University of Rhode Island senior Nicole Jorgensen. Heremaia added 17 points, including 12 in the first half. Downey had 11 points and nine rebounds, and freshman Anna DeWolfe made her share of critical shots, scoring 12 points including a key jumper that put Fordham up 60-52 with a minute and a half to play.

Another significant contribution to the Fordham effort did not appear on the stat sheet. Freshman point guard Sarah Karpell was asked to defend UMass senior Hailey Leidel, who entered Saturday scoring over 16 points per game. Karpell was up for the task, holding Leidel to just seven points on 2-10 shooting despite holding a four-inch size disadvantage.

Karpell, who averages just over two points per game, will be one of the most important players for Fordham heading down the stretch of the season, and Saturday’s defensive performance was proof.

“Once she settled down, defensively, she was outstanding, and she made a really big difference,” Gaitley said.

With the win, Fordham is now 7-3 in conference play with a major opportunity to make up ground in the offing. Thanks to a weekend of backwards results that included a Davidson College loss to St. Bonaventure University and a Virginia Commonwealth University loss to the George Washington University, Fordham is now just one game behind VCU for second place in the conference standings, which would mean a first-round bye in the Atlantic 10 Tournament.

The Rams will have a golden opportunity to keep pace on Thursday night at the Rose Hill Gym when Davidson comes to the Bronx. The Rams lost 74-62 to Davidson on Jan. 8 in what was Fordham’s worst defensive performance of the season to date.

Davidson is currently one game behind Fordham in the standings and would hold a seeding tiebreaker over Fordham with a win on Thursday. If Fordham wins, it is unlikely the Rams will have to worry about seeding tiebreakers with the Wildcats.

For now, though, it is best for the Rams to avoid these conversations. Fordham will take any win, no matter how it comes. Saturday was no different, nor will any other game be for the rest of the season.

This article originally appeared in The Fordham Ram in February 2020.

At 4:08 p.m. on Saturday, my weekend got a little more interesting.

For some background: I traveled with the Fordham women’s basketball team to broadcast its 1 p.m. game against UMass. After a nail-biting finish that saw Fordham come out on top, we were on our way back home on our Academy bus (shoutout to Alex, who is the best bus driver in America).

Anyway, I was tiredly and half-heartedly scrolling through my phone when I saw a tweet from President Trump. It only came up on my timeline because a couple of my friends liked it, and I assumed it had to do with a fake impeachment or a jab at the media. Instead, it read the following:

“Pete Rose played Major League Baseball for 24 seasons, from 1963-1986, and had more hits, 4,256, than any other player (by a wide margin). He gambled, but only on his own team winning, and paid a decades long price. GET PETE ROSE INTO THE BASEBALL HALL OF FAME. It’s Time!”

Putting aside the obvious grammatical errors and bizarre sentence structure so common in all of his tweets, the president has finally offered something we should all be able to agree on.

In case you are unfamiliar, Rose, the former Reds great, was banned from baseball in August of 1989 after admitting to gambling on games while managing the Reds after his retirement. A report from independent lawyer John Dowd found evidence of bets on 52 Reds games in 1987 while Rose was manager. Dowd later stated in a 2002 interview that, despite having no concrete evidence to support this claim, Rose “probably” bet against the Reds at times, which is problematic for a number of reasons, to say nothing of compromising the integrity of the sport.

What Rose did — and I will not try to argue the contrary — was really bad. In response, Major League Baseball commissioner Bart Giamatti banned Rose on Aug. 24, 1989. In a cruel twist of fate, Giamatti died of a heart attack just eight days later. Rose — the game’s all-time hits leader — was out. He has, on several occasions, appealed for reinstatement, but has been denied multiple times. He has done so again in the past week, in light of the Astros’ nefarious sign-stealing scandal which has threatened the integrity of the sport just as much, if not more, than Rose’s actions. Rose is 78 years old, and it is fair to wonder if the sport will reverse his ban in his lifetime.

That being said, we are a nation of second chances. In the moments in which cancel culture doesn’t prevail, we can be extremely forgiving. Sports has some of the best examples: Michael Vick, Alex Rodriguez, Tiger Woods and even the late Kobe Bryant were all forgiven after their own transgressions and went on to lead successful lives after their playing careers. Rodriguez admitted to using steroids (twice!) and will be eligible for the Hall of Fame in 2022. He may not get in, but he’ll have a chance.

Pete Rose has never gotten this chance, and it’s time for that to change.

In a media landscape that has quickly embraced gambling, Rose’s actions are viewed differently today than they were 30 years ago. Yes, he did an awful thing. He should not be defended for doing it, and the sport was right to punish him severely. However, what Rose did is now glorified in popular culture by those who are not coaches or managers. In its broadcast of the XFL’s kickoff weekend, ABC placed a spread next to the team that was favored and an over/under in the middle of its bottom-third graphics package. While Rose’s suspension had less to do with gambling and more to do with integrity, this progression cannot be ignored.

Perhaps the biggest indictment of Rose’s continued ban is baseball’s own foray into gambling. The sport has recently partnered with MGM Grand as its “official gambling partner” and (surprise!) you can bet on games, so long as you’re 21 and live in one of the 13 states where sports betting is legal. Another six states have recently passed laws legalizing sports gambling, and before you can say “three-batter minimum” and “juiced ball” 10 times fast, it will be legal in all 50 states. But yes, that’s fair to the “integrity” of the game, which has been so fatally compromised over the past couple of years.

Pete Rose has done his time. 30 years of exile haven’t seemed to change him — he only admitted to wrongdoing as a way to sell his own book — but he has served his sentence.

Baseball has a long and complicated history, with too many ups and downs to count. Right now, the sport is closer to the bottom of the valley than the top of the mountain.

Pete Rose is a central character in that story. So are Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire and other steroid users who have been denied entry into the Hall of Fame while their enabler, former commissioner Bud Selig, has his own plaque in Cooperstown.

The president has chimed in. So have many fans and observers. We all agree: Pete Rose belongs in baseball, and he belongs with the greats in Cooperstown.

This article originally appeared in The Fordham Ram in February 2020.

Fordham Women’s Basketball took home its second straight victory on Wednesday afternoon, defeating Rhode Island 60-50 in front of a raucous crowd at the Rose Hill Gym.

The gym was packed for Wednesday’s 11 a.m. start as the game was designated as an annual “Kids Day” in the Bronx, with youngsters from local schools filling the Rose Hill Gym. The kids provided an electric environment for the late-morning tip-off, even if they occasionally cheered at the wrong times.

Fordham fed off that energy to build an early lead it would never relinquish.

In Wednesday’s battle of the Rams, Fordham jumped out to a double-digit lead in the first quarter thanks to some excellent defense. Stephanie Gaitley’s team held Rhode Island to just six first-quarter points and just 3-13 shooting from the field. Fordham freshman Anna DeWolfe scored seven straight points over a three-minute span in the first quarter to help Fordham build the lead; DeWolfe led Fordham with 18 points at the game’s conclusion.

Fordham built out the lead even further in the second quarter. After Rhode Island pulled the deficit within five points with 7:30 left in the first half, Fordham closed the second quarter on a 17-5 run to take a 34-17 lead into the half. The home Rams did this behind DeWolfe’s scoring — 10 points in the first half — and continued stingy defense.

Rhode Island attempted a comeback in the second half. Behind senior center Nicole Jorgensen — who dropped a career-high 35 points on Fordham in her last game at the Rose Hill Gym two years ago — led Rhode Island back, finishing the game with 23 points and 11 rebounds. The visitors had the game within nine points after Jorgensen’s jumper with 7:19 to play, but Rhode Island would get no closer. Fordham responded with a 6-0 run fueled by DeWolfe and junior Bre Cavanaugh, who started out slow but finished with 17 points to nearly match her season average. Fordham stayed ahead and coasted to a 60-50 victory that ended in a tidy hour and 40 minutes — just in time for the attending fans to make it back to school for the end of the day.

With the win, Fordham is now 14-8 overall and 6-3 in Atlantic 10 play. The Rams will get a good test on Saturday as they travel to Amherst, Massachusetts to take on Massachusetts University, which currently sits at 6-4 but is coming off a confounding 63-47 loss to Atlantic 10 cellar dweller George Mason, at 1 p.m on Saturday. After Saturday, the Rams will get a rematch with Davidson, who is currently tied with Fordham for third in the conference standings. Davidson beat Fordham 74-62 in North Carolina back on Jan. 8. 

This article originally appeared in The Fordham Ram in February 2020.

After an up-and-down January, the Fordham squash team found its bearings last weekend in its final regular-season matches, taking down New York University and Boston University before being crowned victorious over Siena College by forfeit.

All three matches were held on Saturday morning and afternoon, Feb. 1 at the Lombardi Squash Courts at Fordham. The Rams’ 10 a.m. matchup with NYU was a fascinating affair, one that went back-and-forth between the two sides. The teams split the first two individual matchups, as NYU’s Hamaad Jafry and Fordham junior Griffin Fitzgerald were each able to win thrilling five-setters over their respective opponents. The next two matches were less tight, as NYU’s Liam Pope and Fordham junior Justin Deckoff each prevailed to make the match a best-out-of-five down the stretch. Fordham dropped the first of those five when sophomore Jack Reed fell to Shane Fries in four sets.

However, with Fordham’s margin for error extremely slim, the Rams were able to step up.

The comeback started with freshman Justin George’s straight-sets victory over Gene Chung; after Saturday’s results, George finished the regular season with a 14-5 record. Fellow freshman Jacob Bennett took down Kenneth Nakamura, and sophomore Dylan Panichello clinched the Fordham win by defeating NYU’s William McPhail in three sets. Fordham forfeited the last individual match, but it did not matter — the Rams won 5-4 and carried that momentum with them the rest of the day.
In match two, Fordham fell behind early on as Frederick Haab and Hunter Chun started off the match with victories for BU. However, Fordham dug in once again, as senior Bruce Czachor, Deckoff, Reed, George, Bennett and Panichello all took their matches in straight sets to give Fordham another victory.

The Rams were supposed to play a third match Saturday against Siena, but it turned into a forfeit victory for Fordham. With three more wins under their belt, the Rams finished the season at 18-9 and, despite some lumps over the course of the season, the team can consider the year a success so far. Last year’s team finished with 20 wins, as did the 2017-18 squad.

Next stop for Fordham is the CSA (College Squash Association) Team Championship, which will be held in Boston, Massachusetts. Last year’s Fordham team took home the Chaffee Cup title for the first time in recent memory, and this year’s team will look to make it two straight titles. The tournament kicks off on Feb. 28.

This article originally appeared in The Fordham Ram in January 2020.

The Fordham squash team was forced to deal with some early adversity to kick off 2020. After a strong start to the season in November and December, the Rams dropped four matches in a row between Jan. 14-19, all of which were at home. Fordham was without some of its best players, and the team simply could not get its entire roster healthy at the same time.

Last weekend though, the Rams righted the ship, both with the health of their star players and the team’s fortunes.

Fordham defeated Bucknell 8-1 last Saturday at the Lombardi Squash Courts on the Rose Hill campus. Junior Griffin Fitzgerald — one of the Fordham players who was in-and-out of action the week before — won the first individual match over Bucknell’s Delancey McFadden, who, ironically, retired before a potential fifth set against Fitzgerald. In the next match, junior Tommy White fell to Bucknell’s Riggs Johnson to tie the match at one apiece. From there, though, the rout was on.

The Rams took their next seven individual matches to close the day with a much-needed 8-1 victory over Bucknell. Senior Bruce Czachor, junior Justin Deckoff, sophomore Jack Reed and freshman Justin George won the next four matches to clinch the victory for Fordham. No match after the first two went longer than four sets. On Saturday, Fordham returned to the form we knew it was capable of, but did not get to see while the team was going through injury.

With the win, the Rams moved to 15-9 on the season with just a handful of matches to play. With the season entering its final month, the story of Fordham’s year and its best players is beginning to take shape. Freshman Caleb Schumacher moved to 16-6 with his victory on Saturday, and the first-year player is tied with Deckoff for the best record of any Fordham player. Another freshman, Justin George — who Fordham head coach Sahel Anwar said would “really help our team” back in October — sits at 12-5. Other standouts for the Rams include freshman Jacob Bennett (15-9), Fitzgerald (15-7) and sophomore Dylan Panichello (14-6).

Fordham’s next matches are at home this Saturday against NYU, Boston University and Siena. The Rams are in the midst of a rare eight-game home stretch to cap off their regular season before the CSA (College Squash Association) Championships commence on Feb. 28.

This article originally appeared in The Fordham Ram in January 2020.

Fordham Men’s Tennis started off the 2020 spring season with positive momentum after defeating Bucknell in its first team match of the year.

That momentum came to a screeching halt this past weekend, as the Rams dropped two matches to Davidson College and Brown University.

The weekend started with Saturday’s match against Davidson, where the Rams got off to a slow start and never recovered. The doubles combinations of junior Max Green and sophomore Jofre Segarra and senior Finn Kemper and junior Alex Makatsaria fell in straight sets, and the third doubles tandem of junior Lutwin de Macar and senior Fabian Mauritzson retired from the match due to injury. Things didn’t get much better from there; Kemper was the lone Ram to win his singles match, doing so over Davidson’s William Clark. However, the end result of the day’s events was a blowout loss for Fordham, and the team needed to regroup quickly against a talented Brown team on Sunday.

Unfortunately for Fordham, Sunday’s match went even worse.

Fordham was unable to win even one of its individual or doubles matches on Sunday, falling to the host Bears by a final tally of 7-0. All three of Fordham’s doubles teams once again faltered with Mauritzson and de Macar again being unable to finish. Fordham was also far less competitive in the singles matches, losing each one in straight sets despite some impressive rallies to make the sets close.

Fordham is 1-2 after this weekend’s defeats. The Rams will take on Fairfield in an early-season road test at 6 p.m. on Saturday. It is not that Fordham fell down this weekend that counts, it is how the Rams will respond.

This article originally appeared in The Fordham Ram in January 2020.

Fordham Baseball had a historic 2019 season, and the Rams are already looking to put it behind them. No, not in a bad way — the Rams won the Atlantic 10 and made it to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in 21 years — but success can weigh on a team just as much as failure, and Fordham is looking to build off its success instead of bask in it.

“Our approach is the same as every year,” Fordham head coach Kevin Leighton said. “The goal is to make the A-10 tournament and from there, win it.”

Fordham will look to do that despite some key losses to its star-studded 2019 roster. Junior closer Kyle Martin was drafted by the Orioles shortly after the end of the season after posting 10 saves and a 2.44 ERA. Senior Anthony DiMeglio graduated and then signed with the Brewers as an undrafted free agent. Another top reliever, Anthony Zimmerman, also graduated and signed with the Reds. Finally, senior Mike Cowell transferred to Fairfield.

“Every year we have to replace the guys that we lose to graduation and the MLB Draft, and there is no doubt it is a challenge, especially replacing the draft guys,” Leighton said. “We lost some incredibly talented guys from last year’s group but I am confident that we will have new guys step up this year.”

For all Fordham is losing off last year’s team, the Rams are bringing a lot of talent back. The Rams’ top five hitters in OPS (on-base plus slugging) are all returning, as are seven of the nine position players who played 50 games or more last season. Leading the Fordham hitters is junior infielder Jake MacKenzie, who hit .305 last season and stole 43 bases, which was fourth in the country last season. Seniors Jake Baker, C.J. Vazquez and Alvin Melendez, along with sophomore Jason Coules — all of whom hit at least .270 last season — will also return to fortify a strong Fordham lineup. Baker led the team in hitting last season with a .309 average.

Also returning as position players are senior infielder Matt Tarabek, who hit .250 and scored 35 runs, and a potential bounce-back candidate in senior Billy Godrick, who had just 23 hits in 149 at-bats last year but brings speed to the lineup, particularly if he can get on base.

In addition to the position players, Fordham brings back perhaps the best player on the roster, 2019 All-American junior pitcher John Stankiewicz. Stankiewicz was outstanding in 2019, pitching to just 1.47 ERA in 13 starts. In postseason play, he was equally as dominant, giving up just one run in seven innings in his lone A-10 Tournament start against VCU. The team will have to replace DiMeglio in its starting rotation, but with Stankiewicz leading the charge, the starting rotation should be in extremely good hands.

Fordham also will add six freshmen to its roster when it begins play in 2020. Leighton specifically cited infielder Zach Selinger, pitcher and infielder Jack Popolizio and pitcher Ben Kovel as players to watch. He also called freshman pitcher Garrett Crowley “very impressive” so far in the team’s early practices.

“I think we have a number of guys that will be challenging for playing time this year which will push everyone to bring their best day in and day out,” Leighton said.
Fordham will look to reach the summit of the Atlantic 10 for a second straight season. It will not be easy and the Rams will have a target on their back every time they take the field, but last year’s championship experience, coupled with the multitudes of players returning from last year’s team, bode well for the team’s chances of repeating in 2020. That being said, the team seems to be over the high of winning a conference championship last season.

“Last year was a great year for us, but last year is over, and we need to continue to work hard day in and day out if we want to accomplish our goal of winning another A-10 Championship,” said Leighton.

This article originally appeared in The Fordham Ram in January 2020.

Fordham Women’s Basketball is in the midst of its toughest stretch so far this season. The team is taking on three teams — Saint Louis University, University of Dayton and Virginia Commonwealth University — who entered last Thursday with just three combined losses in the Atlantic 10 Conference.
With such a tough schedule, expecting Fordham to run the table would have been an unreasonable expectation, and two games into this gauntlet, Fordham is finding out just how difficult it is to beat the best teams in the A-10.

Fordham defeated Saint Louis 66-54 on Thursday night in the Bronx, but fell 48-44 to Dayton in a defensive struggle on Sunday. With the recent results, Fordham is now 12-7 overall and 4-2 in Atlantic 10 play.

On Thursday, the Rams found themselves down by 12 points in the third quarter against Saint Louis, who entered the night 2-3 in conference play. The Billikens jumped out to a 43-31 lead minutes into the second half, but Fordham buckled down shortly thereafter, outscoring the Billikens by 24 points for the rest of the game to cruise to a 66-54 victory that belied the seesaw nature of the game.Fordham’s comeback was highlighted by 12 unanswered points to end the third quarter that brought the teams into the fourth quarter tied at 43.

Junior Bre Cavanaugh led the way for the Rams with 17 points in the second half and 27 points for the game. Freshman Anna DeWolfe and sophomore Kaitlyn Downey also combined for 27 points themselves, and freshman Sarah Karpell hit a three-pointer on her lone shot attempt of the night to put Fordham ahead for good with 7:16 to play.

The Rams shot 44% from the field (23-52) and 35% (9-26) from the three-point line. Encouragingly, sophomore Vilisi Tavui played her second straight solid game, with six rebounds in 13 minutes off the bench.

With a win in hand, Fordham looked to make it four in a row on Sunday against preseason conference favorite Dayton. The home Flyers entered the game at 6-0 as one of three teams still undefeated in A-10 play. Unsurprisingly, Dayton didn’t make things easy for the Rams all day.

The Flyers’ conference-best defense came to play on Sunday, holding Fordham to a staggering 10 points and 4-29 shooting in the first half. If I would have given you those numbers after 20 minutes of play, you would have said that Fordham was getting blown out of the water.

As it turned out, the Rams were down 12, but not out of striking distance thanks to a solid defense of their own.

Fordham slowly started to chip away in the third quarter, outscoring Dayton 12-7 to cut the deficit to seven going into the fourth. Fordham’s shooting numbers were not exponentially better — the team was shooting a putrid 20% heading into the fourth — but thanks to gritty defense and perseverance, Fordham somehow stayed in the game, and shots began to fall.

Fordham started the third quarter on a roll, with Cavanaugh and DeWolfe spearheading the offense. DeWolfe’s three-pointer with five minutes left tied the game at 35 and brought Fordham as close to a lead as it would get all day. Dayton responded with five straight points, but Fordham had another answer in store, as DeWolfe continued her personal 10-0 run and tied the game at 40 by completing an and-one with 1:09 to play.

Dayton senior Jayla Scaife’s jumper on the next possession put the Flyers up two, and the teams played the free throw game the rest of the way, but Dayton was able to survive with a 48-44 victory.

Despite the loss, Fordham can be encouraged by the fact that it competed with one of the two remaining undefeated teams in the conference. The other, VCU, awaits the Rams on Wednesday night in Richmond, Virginia. Fordham should also be encouraged by the fact that it stayed competitive at UD Arena, which has been a house of horrors for the Fordham program over the years. In fact, the Rams had lost their last three road games at Dayton by a combined 69 points.

The road does not get easier for the Fordham women’s basketball team; the Rams take on the Rams of VCU at the Siegal Center at 6 p.m. Wednesday night.

This article originally appeared in The Fordham Ram in January 2020.

Fordham Women’s Tennis faced a tough task this weekend, starting its team season with matchups against Harvard and Boston College. The Rams got an early wake-up call from both teams, losing both matches by scores of 7-0 and 5-2, respectively.

The team’s weekend started on Saturday with its matchup against Harvard University. Fordham got steamrolled for the doubles point, as the combinations of sophomore Valeriya Deminova and freshman Avery Aude, junior Arina Taluyenko and freshman Weronika Pociej and sophomore Nicole Li and sophomore Genevieve Quenville were no match for Harvard’s doubles pairings. Things did not improve much in the singles portion of the event, as Taluyenko, senior Maia Balce, Deminova, Aude, Pociej and Quenville all lost in two sets.

Fordham looked to right the ship on Sunday afternoon against Boston College, but the Rams had a hard time doing so against a team that entered Sunday’s match undefeated.

Fordham put up a more competitive effort on Sunday but ultimately fell 5-2. The Rams took the doubles point to start the match as a sign that maybe Sunday would be different, but the host Eagles showed their depth in the singles matches, winning five out of six to run away with the match.

With the loss, Fordham Women’s Tennis has started its season 0-2. This part of the schedule looked difficult from the start of the fall season, and it reared its ugly head to begin the spring campaign. Fordham has what it hopes is an easier match this Saturday against Quinnipiac University in New Haven, Connecticut. The Rams are looking to build off an 11-11 season last year that saw the team fall to George Washington in its second match at the Atlantic 10 Conference tournament at season’s end. Saturday’s match — the only one of the weekend for Fordham — gets started at 5:30 p.m.

This article originally appeared in The Fordham Ram in January 2020.

Fordham senior pitcher Madie Aughinbaugh is expected to have a big year for the Fordham softball team. Those expectations were ratcheted up ever so slightly this week.

Aughinbaugh has been named to Softball America’s list of the top 100 players in America, in the 99th position. This honor comes off the heels of another NCAA Tournament appearance for Fordham Softball and another stellar campaign by Aughinbaugh.

In 2019, the Rams’ ace pitched to a 2.44 ERA and 17 wins in a staggering 33 starts. The then-junior stalwart really picked it up, though, as the season wound to a climactic close, starting each of Fordham’s final six games — four in the Atlantic 10 Tournament and two in the NCAA Tournament. She gave up just 10 runs in those games and went the distance in all of them.

With her large part in Fordham’s seventh straight conference title and the team’s trip to the NCAA Tournament, Aughinbaugh was unsurprisingly named the Atlantic 10’s Pitcher of the Year. Fordham needed everything Aughinbaugh had at the end of last season, and Aughinbaugh was up to a task that few other pitchers in America would have been able to achieve. 

The senior was the best player on the field for Fordham last season, and it was not just for her exploits in the circle. For as good as Aughinbaugh was there, she also provided great value from the plate, where she hit a team-high .354 and tied for the team lead in hits with 63. As easy as that is to forget in her pitching exploits, she can do it all with the bat in her hands as well.

Madie Aughinbaugh will look to build off of a historic 2019 season that saw her make her mark on Fordham’s softball program and the school’s record books. The Rams will need her to be at her best again, with the team replacing several key losses at important positions.

That being said, if last year taught us one thing, it is that as long as Madie Aughinbaugh is playing for Fordham, the Rams’ potential is almost limitless.