SPORTS EDITOR

For most college basketball teams, the summer months are filled with a few things. There is some vacation time away from school, there are camps to work for children of all ages and there are summer workouts to stay in condition for the upcoming season.

Fordham’s women’s basketball team had all of those. But they ended their summer in unforgettable fashion.

Head coach Stephanie Gaitley and her Rams took a trip to the other side of the world, visiting Australia, New Zealand and Fiji, where they played six preseason tune-up games and had the experience of a lifetime.

This trip did not come to fruition overnight. The idea started way back when Coach Gaitley and senior guard Erin Rooney, a native of Christchurch, New Zealand, were both at Monmouth University.

“I told Erin when I recruited her [at Monmouth] that we would do a foreign tour and get her home,” Gaitley said. “When Erin transferred with me [to Fordham], that’s what prompted this trip.”

The journey that was more than three years in the making started on Aug. 13, when the team took the three-flight, 31-hour journey to get to Australia, the first leg of their foreign tour. Australia is where the Rams would face the best basketball competition. They played two games in four days in The Land Down Under.

The first game, on Aug. 18, against the Geelong Supercats in Geelong, Australia resulted in a thrilling double-overtime win for the Rams. Veterans came up big for Fordham, as seniors Abigail Corning and Rooney combined for 35 points. The game-winning bucket came when sophomore Samantha Clark received an inbounds pass and laid the ball in as time expired, giving Fordham a 55-53 win.

The second and last game in Australia came against the Women’s National Basketball League’s Melbourne Boomers. The NBL is Australia’s professional league for women, thus providing Fordham with very stiff competition. The Boomers handily defeated the Rams, 69-38.

“We got our butts kicked,” Gaitley said. “But it was good. It will probably be the best team that will be on our schedule. It’s like their WNBA team, so it was a great experience against a very talented team.”

Along with basketball, the Rams’ time in Australia was highlighted by trips to the Healesville Sanctuary, a zoo where players got to interact with native animals such as kangaroos, dingoes and even pythons. The team also took in an Australian Rules Football game at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, as well as sight-seeing and exploring various parts of Australia.

Once Fordham finished in Australia it was time to fly over to New Zealand, the second leg of the trip. Perhaps the most anticipated part of the tour, it would mark Rooney’s homecoming. There would be no family time wasted, as Erin’s family was waiting for the team at the airport.

“It was funny [for the team to meet my family],” Rooney said. “Because they have all met them on Skype, so it was kind of that awkward ‘I’ve met you before, but now I’m meeting you in person’ but it was nice.”

The team shared a similar sentiment.

“It was fun to be greeted by Erin’s parents, sister and godfather at the airport with a ‘Welcome Fordham Rams’ sign,” Corning wrote on the team’s travel blog.  “We could finally meet and hug the people that we had talked to on Skype for two years now.”

The New Zealand leg of the trip started with a tour of the area, which is still suffering from the effects of a devastating 2011 earthquake. The team, however, brought something that a town still reeling from a natural disaster hadn’t had in a while.

“Just to see the appreciation for the excitement that our team brought there,” Gaitley said. “Just to see how much excitement we instilled was great.”

Although much of the town was still dealing with earthquake troubles, the beautiful New Zealand scenery managed to brighten up the tour of the town.

“It was sad to see the destruction the earthquake from February 2011 had done to the city,” Corning wrote, “but the land and the mountains were breathtaking.”

From there, the team was led to Rooney’s family’s house, where they had dinner and spent quality time with Erin’s family, along with spending a few minutes on the beach just a short distance from Rooney’s home.

The second day in New Zealand proved just as exciting. After touring the land a bit more, the team was treated to plane rides over the area of Christchurch, allowing them to get a different look at Rooney’s hometown.

That night, the Rams took on the Cantebury Wildcats at Cowles Stadium in Christchurch. Just as expected, the stadium was packed with friends and family waiting to see Rooney play. Fordham picked up the win, 67-55. Rooney had eight points in the game, and was showered with love by the hometown crowd.

“There was such a mess of a turnout,” Rooney said. “That was so great to see.”

The Rams spent their last day in New Zealand traveling to Hanmer Springs, a warm water resort that mimics a water park. With the temperature being only 50 or 60 degrees, the water resembled more of a hot tub than a pool, providing a very interesting yet fun trip for the team.

After their three and a half days in New Zealand, it was time to fly to Fiji, the last country on the foreign tour for the team. Fiji provided the team with the most unusual experience.

The team was greeted by local Fijians singing their welcoming song and chanting “Bula,” which means “hello.” The natives gave the Rams’ necklaces as they boarded the bus to get to their hotel.

The cultural experience continued in the team’s second day on the island. After breakfast, the Rams went to a customary welcoming ceremony in Laukota, Fiji, known as “Sugar City” because it is the heart of Fiji’s sugar cane growing region. The team arrived, and then came perhaps the most memorable part of the trip.

“When we went in to play the national team [in Sugar City], their village had to welcome us,” Gaitley said. “The girls couldn’t get off the bus without putting saran skirts on, all the women had to be in skirts, and then we had a tribal welcoming. We had to drink welcoming juice called karva out of this wooden thing. It was really, really interesting.”

Following the ceremony, it was off to the court which would hold the clinic that Fordham would be putting on for the children of the area and their game against the Fijian national team. The clinic gave the team a chance to give back to a community that was obviously much less well off than what they were used to in the states.

“For our kids, I think it was a real eye-opening experience,” Gaitley said. “The clinic and the game were outside, and the kids that came to the clinic, some of them didn’t even have shoes on. I think our kids took a lot away from just understanding what they have, and being appreciative of what they have.”

After the clinic, the Rams took on the Fijian national team on the same outdoor court, winning 55-36. Rooney had a team high 13 points for Fordham, while Clark added nine as the Rams’ defense stepped up to lead the team to a win in their last game of the tour.

With the basketball part of their trip over, the team got to enjoy two final days on the paradise that is the Fiji beaches. The Rams took a trip to a smaller island to spend the day, where they were given the choice of many activities. Some of the girls went snorkeling, kayaking or parasailing, while some chose to just take in the sun on the beach.

The foreign tour wrapped up on Aug. 27 when the Rams took off to come back to the United States, just in time for the start of classes the next day.

The journey provided priceless learning opportunities for Fordham that they can take moving forward into Gaitley’s third year as head coach, a key year in blending the old with the new.

“For us, it was about chemistry,” Gaitley said. “We graduated so many significant seniors last year. And the trip was everything and more both culturally and with basketball. We have all of the tape, we’ve already gone over some of it, getting that angst out of [the freshmen] and getting that experience in putting on the uniform. So now, I feel like we’re a month ahead.”

Fordham will continue its prep for the upcoming season as it tries to build on the success of making the Atlantic 10 Championship game and making it to the round of 16 in the Women’s NIT. The Rams’ first game is Nov. 3 against Kutztown State.