Fordham Men’s Soccer kicked off their week with their first game in Atlantic 10 Conference play, easily taking down the St. Bonaventure Bonnies, before heading over to Manhattan College for the Battle of the Bronx.
Leading the team in goals is graduate student Timo Hummrich and senior Florian Deletioglu, and both played essential roles in the big win against St. Bonaventure this past week.
Kicking things off in the first half, graduate student Louis Lehr and junior Grady Kozak took opening shots against St. Bonaventure’s goalie, Jules Dechert, but were stopped just short of goals.
In the 25th minute, Lehr would be back on the ball again, this time threading a long ball to sophomore Daniel D’Ippolito threading a stellar pass to Deletioglu who found the back of the net on the near side.
Graduate student Carter Abbott had a quiet first half in the net, as he didn’t have any shots on goal against him in the first 45 minutes.
Things picked up in the second half as the Bonnies began to put pressure on, recording three shots, but had trouble finding the back of the net with the Rams’ defense staying characteristically strong.
The Rams opened up scoring in the second half with a foul inside the box on graduate student Kai Griese which set up a penalty kick for Fordham. Hummrich was selected to take the kick and easily buried it past Dechert for the second goal for the Rams.
But the third goal of the game was a show-stopper for the Rams as Deletioglu had a photo-finish goal as he showed off his bicycle kick off a header from sophomore Nathan Simes.
Shocking the Bonnies, Dechert stood no chance stopping the foot of Deletioglu, bringing the score up to 3-0 and securing Fordham the solid victory.
Later in the week, the Rams had their big matchup against rival school Manhattan for the Battle of the Bronx. The Rams jumped to scoring first as D’Ippolito scored into the low corner just past Danny DiMarco for the first goal in the 36th minute.While all remained quiet for the Rams through the end of the first half, the Rams outshot the Jaspers 14-4.
Things stayed in the Rams favor heading into the second half, as Griese set up Hummrich for yet another goal this week. This assist allowed Hummrich to slot it in the back of the net to make the lead 2-0 going into the last 27 minutes of the game. Fordham locked things down, securing their win in the Battle of the Bronx with a score of 2-0.
The Rams have gone undefeated in their last seven games and are slowing things down this week, playing only one game instead of two. This next game will be their biggest test yet as they go on the road to St. Louis University. While St. Louis has under performed so far this year in their matches, the Rams and the Billikens always have a tough battle. That game starts at 8:30 p.m. Saturday.
