After turning things around, the Rams are swiftly underway in this 2023 season, with all the dominoes starting to fall properly. After a series win at home against Quinnipiac University, the Rams have finally found the confidence they’ve been looking for.

In their recent five games, they’ve gone 3-2, with there still being some fine tuning to do, but are much stronger than their 0-12 start.
To kick things off, the Rams pummeled Lafayette College to mark their fifth win in their last six games.

The Rams surged right away with sophomore Cian Sahler scoring off of a ground out from freshman Daniel Bucciero. The freshman, putting up a .328 batting average over 19 games this season has largely attributed to the Rams’ success.

The Rams continued to take advantage of errors on the side of Lafayette, allowing one run to score before freshman Tommy McAndrews hit his first home run of the season, a two-run shot to right field.

Fordham was not done yet as they tacked on four more runs in the following inning courtesy of a walk and yet another Lafayette error.

One of the key pieces to Fordham’s team this year is the strong freshman core they have built, with McAndrews leading the charge. He added a two-run single in the fourth, and the game marked McAndrews season high with runs batted in with four.

Slowly, runs trickled in until they hit their total for the day of 11. Holding the Leopards to one was the pitching rotation of starter junior Trey Maeker, freshman Ryan Egan, junior Nolan Hughes and sophomore Gannon Brady. Hughes reached a career high in strikeouts over three innings of relief.

Truly there was no better momentum to have going into a three-game stretch against Fairfield University, but it just wouldn’t be the Rams strongest series opener, as Fairfield’s Jake Noviello struck out six over seven innings.

In a change of events it was the Rams who struck first to start off the series, with a sac fly from Bucciero to bring home junior Ryan Thiesse.
Fairfield put up one run on a solo home run shot by Mike Handal, but the Rams were ready for a challenge. The Rams added on three runs for a 4-1 lead, but that would be the end to the scoring for Fordham that day.

From there, the Stags went on a rampage adding five runs — four times in the fourth and once in the fifth to make the score 9-4.

Rams pitching took a big hit with junior Declan Lavelle dropping his first start of the season, giving up six hits over four innings and graduate student Austin Sachen had a rough time in relief, giving up four runs on six hits. Sachen did record a season-high eight strikeouts in the game.

Instead of playing a game on Sunday, the teams opted to play a doubleheader on Saturday, with the first game falling in favor of the Rams thanks to graduate student Peter DeMaria.

Fordham trailed the Stags by one going into the second and quickly blasted three runs courtesy of McAndrews and a two-run double from freshman Jack Vallario.

Mike Handal was back with a vengeance in game two, bringing another solo home run to the Stags total. With the score at 3-2, the Rams pushed forward to add on more runs before Fairfield could do it first.

DeMaria brought home a runner while senior Zach Selinger delivered a two-run single to bring home two runners.

While the Stags tried to make a comeback, DeMaria slammed a solo home run to left to walk off the game, 7-6. DeMaria was the man of the game, finishing three-for-five with a double, a home run and three RBI.

However, the start of the second game was less than ideal when Rams’ starting pitcher Connor Haywood suffered an injury and could not pitch. As a response, freshman Aric Berg continued his time of relief from the game before.

An early double from the Stags’ Becchetti started the scoring off for Fairfield, while the rest of the scoring did not happen until the halfway point.

A Pagliarini two-run homer was the highlight of the game for Fairfield as they pulled away with five runs by the end of the sixth inning.
Fairfield junior Colin McVeigh threw seven shutout innings, keeping the Rams cold at the plate all day.

Due to the inability to battle against McVeigh, the Rams dropped the series with a final game score of 5-0.

In the final game of the week, the Rams faced off against Siena College at Houlihan Park. The Rams had a pretty evenly matched opponent ahead of them as both teams had roughly the same record going into the matchup on Tuesday.

Zach Sellinger opened up the scoring immediately with a grand slam off of Siena starting pitcher Arnad Mulamekic on a three-two count. Siena answered right back with a two-run homer in the second to keep the game close at 4-2.

From then on, it was all Rams as they made use of sloppy play from Siena. The Fordham bats heated up quickly with a Bucciero triple and a sac fly from DeMaria.

While Siena pulled within one in the third inning after a DiNicola two-run homer, the Rams put their foot on the gas with critical singles and doubles being the key style of play the Rams needed to go forward with to win the game.

Singles and doubles from players like sophomore Diego Prieto, Sahler, Sellinger and sophomore T.J. Wachter all contributed to the Rams 15-6 victory on a pleasant Tuesday afternoon.

Sellinger truly had himself a day with six RBI, one run and two hits and four at bats. Bucciero also consistently has put up numbers for the team, in three at bats recording three runs, two hits, one RBI and two walks.

The Fordham men’s baseball team is finally hitting their stride now as they claim three out of the five last games they have played. From what could have been described as a horrific start, this team, led primarily by tons of freshman talent, have shaped this team into a true contender going into Atlantic 10 play.

The Rams will be back in action for one last non-conference series on the road against Seton Hall University before returning to the Bronx to face the University of Hartford for one game on Tuesday.