In the first weekend of play for the Fordham baseball team, the Rams lost all three of their games against Dallas Baptist University on the road this past weekend.

Going into the new season, many new faces made their debut on the 40-man roster.

New freshmen joining the team include Aric Berg, Ryan Egan, Nate Rusher, Bo Bramer, Daniel Bucciero, Jack Vallario, Liam Bowes, Tommy McAndrews and Kyle McTamaney.

Head coach Kevin Leighton, returning for his 12th year as head coach, also saw multiple transfers joining the roster, such as juniors Nate Scott and Michael Brueser, and a ton of graduate students in Austin Sachen, Ryan Rockhill, Dominic Cunha, Peter DeMaria and William Simeone.

Kicking off the first game of the series, the Rams brought on graduate student pitcher Gabe Karslo to pitch the first four innings. Karslo pitched great for the Rams, holding Dallas Baptist to one run and putting up three strikeouts.

However, trouble occurred for the Rams in the sixth inning with the Patriots scoring six runs to extend their lead to 7-0. Fordham just couldn’t get any runs on the board resulting in an 8-0 loss to open the series. Dallas Baptist held Fordham to only three hits in the game, and recorded a whopping 18 strikeouts.

Looking to turn things around in the second game, the Rams had a rude awakening as they gave up eight runs over the first two innings in Dallas. The star of the game had to be Dallas Baptist’s Tom Poole, who hit two home runs and drove in four runs throughout the game. His runs helped contribute to the massive lead the Patriots took going into the fifth, up by 13.
The Rams finally got on the board in the fifth, courtesy of an RBI-groundout by senior Zach Selinger, but the offense was just not in action that day. While Fordham would later put up four more runs late in the game, the damage had already been done. The Rams lost their second game, 19-5.

Finally in their last matchup of the weekend, it was once again not an ideal start for the Rams as they gave up a grand slam to Dallas Baptist’s Miguel Santos in the second inning alongside four more runs, making the score 8-0 early in the game.

The Patriots were not done yet, adding five more runs in the third to bring their total to 13, all before the Rams could score one.

The solo Rams run came in the sixth with Fordham getting back-to-back singles courtesy of DeMaria and sophomore Sebastian Mexico. Now with runners on the bases, Bucciero came through with a double, bringing Mexico home. The pitching line for the Rams included junior Nolan Hughes, who allowed six runs in just over an inning. Scott allowed one hit over 2.2 innings of relief and Connor Haywood also threw a scoreless relief inning.

While this weekend didn’t fare much success for the Rams, the team has a lot of young talent and fresh faces to brighten up the lineup. The Rams have room to improve this season, after finishing with a 9-15 record in conference play and a 16-36 record overall in 2022.

The Rams will face Old Dominion University for a three-game series this weekend in Norfolk, Va. The first game is Friday at 3 p.m. After that, Fordham will have their big home opener on March 1 against Fairleigh Dickinson University.