Fordham Rams Baseball traveled to North Carolina this past weekend for four games at the USA Baseball National Training Complex in Cary, North Carolina.
The Rams opened up the weekend with a back-and-forth battle against Harvard University, securing its first victory of the season with a 14-10 win. The matchup was the first between these programs since 1936.
The Rams opened the scoring in the second inning with a string of singles. Senior Cian Sahler and sophomore Madden Ocko led off with back-to-back base hits, putting runners on the corners for sophomore Matt Dieguez, who drove in Sahler with an RBI knock. Two batters later, freshman Caden Young kept the momentum going, adding another single and scoring Ocko. An error extended the inning and scored a third run before two singles from junior Daniel Bucciero and graduate student Reid Lapekas pushed Fordham’s advantage to 5-0. Harvard responded quickly with two in the bottom of the inning.
In the third inning, Young cranked a three-run home run to left, his second homer of the season, to reextend the Rams’ lead to 8-2. Six unanswered runs by the Crimson, including two two-run homers, knotted the game at eight by the fourth inning. The score remained tied until the sixth, when Harvard took its first lead on a sacrifice fly and an RBI single, making it 10-8.
Fordham rallied in the seventh inning. Sahler led off with a hit-by-pitch, followed by an Ocko single.Graduate student Andrew Kanellis drove them both in with a two-run double to tie the game at ten.
The Rams regained the lead when Kanellis scored on an error in the next at-bat. Fordham added insurance runs in the eighth and ninth innings for senior Gannon Brady who shut the door on the 14-10 win for his first collegiate save. He pitched the final three innings, not allowing a run or hit while striking out two.
Following up this thrilling victory, the Rams were on the receiving end of a scoring onslaught in their second game of the weekend, falling 15-2 to Indiana University. Indiana started the scoring in the first inning, plating two on a pair of walks, an RBI single and an RBI groundout.
Fordham responded with two in the bottom half of the first when graduate student Jack Brennan and freshman Taylor Kirk both scored and opened the inning with a walk and single. However, that was all the scoring for the Rams on the day, as they only mustered four more hits for the game, all singles.
Indiana regained the lead for good in the third inning, when an error in center field cleared the bases. Then the Hoosiers added four more in the fifth inning, two in the seventh and another four in the eighth en route to the 15-2 win.
The Rams squad capped off their weekend losing both their games versus the Northwestern Wildcats. All the scoring in game one’s seven-inning affair came in the first, beginning with a two-run home run from the Wildcats’ senior Bennett Markinson. The Rams cut the lead in half in the bottom of the frame when Kirk singled, advanced to second on a hit-by-pitch and scored on Ocko’s single to right.
From then on, it was a pitcher’s duel between Fordham graduate student Mike Rabayda and Garrett Shearer. Rabayda only allowed those two first-inning runs over six innings and struck out nine, but Shearer only allowed the one over seven complete innings, striking out six.
In game two of the doubleheader and final game of the weekend, the Rams jumped out to an early 2-0 advantage in the second inning. Kanellis led off the frame with a single to left and scored on sophomore Carson Chavez’s double down the right-field line. Two batters later, Brennan scored Chavez on a single.
The Wildcats then evened the game at two. Markinson hit another two-run shot to left in the fourth inning. Northwestern took the lead an inning later on an RBI single and extended it to 6-2 on a three-run homer from Markinson, his third of the day. Fordham tacked on a third run in the sixth on an RBI single, but that would be the end, as the Wildcats scored two more in the seventh and one in the eighth, cruising to a win with a final score of 9-3.
The Rams return home to The Bronx for their home opener on Feb. 26 when they will face Iona at Rose Hill’s Houlihan Park. They then travel to Florida’s Boca Raton for a three-game weekend series against Florida Atlantic University.
