Junior midfielder Daniel D’Ippolito continued his domination with his second hat-trick of the year, lifting Fordham University Men’s Soccer to a 3-0 victory against Duquesne University at Rooney Field in the first round of the Atlantic 10 Championship.
With the match level after the first 45 minutes, the Rams got on the board immediately after the break. Graduate student midfielder Luca Bernoth switched the field with a lovely long ball that D’Ippolito controlled before blasting it past senior goalkeeper Zoltan Nagy from the top of the box, giving Fordham a 1-0 lead.
D’Ippolito doubled his tally in the 62nd minute. Graduate student forward Luke Pompliano possessed a bouncing ball from senior Kamran Mojabi before pushing the ball upfield toward D’Ippolito. The junior captain eyed up the shot from 30 yards before unleashing a mesmerizing knuckle-ball that moved left to right, zipping past Nagy to make it 2-0.
D’Ippolito added the final feather to his hat(trick) in the 76th minute when junior forward Bennett Leitner set up the midfielder at the top of the box. Just like his first goal, D’Ippolito controlled the ball before burying it into the right side of the goal.
With his hat trick against Duquesne and Santa Clara this season, D’Ippolito became the fourth Ram to register two hat-tricks in the same season. He is also the second player in program history to score three goals in the A-10 tournament, joining Eric Ohlendord, who coincidentally had a hat trick against Duquesne in the 2016 tournament.
Entering the match, D’Ippolito’s 27 points ranked him 10th in the country. His three goals on the night brought his total to 13, the second most in a season for the Rams since John Wolyniec’s record-breaking 25-goal campaign. D’Ippolito joins good company as the New York MetroStars drafted Wolyniec with the seventh pick in the 1999 MLS College Draft.
Fordham will appear in the A-10 semi-finals for the 11th time in program history, and it will be its first trip back since its 2021 championship campaign. The Rams have appeared in the final four of the conference tournament eight out of the past 11 seasons.
On Wednesday, the Rams will travel to the University of Dayton to take on the fifth-ranked Flyers. This will be the second matchup between the two teams this season, with Fordham coming out on the winning end of a 4-2 clash in Ohio to hand the Flyers one of their impressive two losses on the year. Kickoff is scheduled for 7 p.m. at Baujan Field.
