Fordham Squash opened their season this past Saturday in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., with two matches against Vassar College and St. Lawrence University.
Unfortunately for the Rams, they dropped both matches in blowout fashion, losing to Vassar 8-1 and St. Lawrence 9-0.
Fordham’s only point against Vassar came courtesy of freshman Peter Vorbach at fifth position. He defeated Razaan Lalji in five games, 11-3, 10-12, 8-11, 12-10, 11-6. Vorbach is a Bronxville, N.Y. native who attended the Salisbury School in Connecticut.
Senior Henry Frawley was the closest Ram behind Vorbach to winning a game, but he dropped a heartbreaking five-set thriller to Konstan Georgallides at third position in a match where he had a two-set lead. After dropping the first two sets 9-11, 11-13, Georgallides impressively rallied to beat Frawley with a 11-1 win in set three, 11-7 in set four and 11-5 in set five.
In positions one and two, Fordham also came close to winning another point.
Sophomore Nicholas Gilman fell in four sets to Rithik Jalali at first position 10-12, 11-7, 11-7, 11-1. Gilman is coming off an impressive freshman season for the Rams where he played all 21 of his matches in the top two positions. He’ll be looking to step into an even larger role this season as the Rams’ best option at the top of the order. Junior Bennett Van Liew also lost in four sets at second position. Jay Vashisht topped Van Liew 11-6, 13-11, 11-13, 11-4.
Against St. Lawrence, Fordham was absolutely dismantled. The Rams lost all nine of their matches, all by 3-0 scores. St. Lawrence had an incredible weekend overall as they didn’t lose a single set in three matches against Fordham, Vassar and Boston University.
After a successful 2022-23 campaign that saw Fordham go 20-11 overall including a win at the Collegiate Squash Association (CSA) Championship, this was a disappointing start to the season for the Rams.
Fordham will look to bounce back next at the Navy Round Robin beginning on Nov. 10, where they’ll square off with a number of talented schools including Navy, Bucknell University and Georgetown University.
