After going 20-28 last season, the Fordham softball team is back in 2024. Undertaking 55 games, they kicked off the first of those games with five going on in Jacksonville, Fla., this past weekend. Participating in the River City Leadoff Tournament, the Rams fell short of making it a winning weekend, yet racked up two wins against the University of Southern Mississippi.
The Rams came into this season being ranked fifth in the Atlantic 10 Preseason Polls, a drop after being selected number one in 2023. This season, they added new assistant coach Mackenzie Swinehart after two years as an assistant coach at the University of Notre Dame.
But there are a ton of familiar faces across the roster, such as sophomore Neleh Nogay who hit .397 in 44 starts last season, leading the team across hits. Similarly, on the pitching front, graduate student Devon Miller is back for a fifth year, as well as sophomore Holly Beeman who, across 22 starts, recorded a team-high 109.1 innings pitched. In 2023, she put eight wins under her belt, finishing with a 1.89 ERA, ranking her among the top 20 players in the nation.
Starting off in the first game of the season against Southern Mississippi, Nogay highlighted the offensive strengths of the Rams squad, driving in three runs in the second inning off of a triple.
Miller took to the mound for the first game, pitching all seven innings as well as performing strong, conceding just one run on four hits.
After the third inning, neither squad was able to tally on more runs to the final score, giving the Rams their opening season win, 3-1.
In the second matchup of the day, the Rams did not fare as lucky. The University of North Florida came out swinging against Fordham senior Bailey Enoch. The utility player who started every game for the Rams last season gave up nine runs across 3.2 innings, giving a monumental lead to North Florida.
The Rams’ offense could not get going as they only managed to scrape two runs by North Florida’s Allison Benning. They would concede the matchup 10-2 with another three games in the tournament left to play.
First, on Saturday, the Rams battled back against Southern Mississippi in a rematch game to snag the win out from under them.
In the bottom of the seventh, the Rams had one last chance to make an impact. Two walks to start things off for the Rams to seniors Julia Petrovich and Bella Ayala allowed the tying runs to be on base. Adding on a single by sophomore Eva Korastsis, the bases were loaded for the Rams.
The Rams were fired up at this point, as sophomore Kate McGuire hit a heater to the third base side to score a run and make the score 1-2, Southern Mississippi.
Trying to hold on to their lead, Southern Mississippi decided to pull starting pitcher BrookLynn White and replace her with a fresh arm in Jana Lee. However, next up in the order was freshman Mikayla Swan who drove in the tying run off of a single.
With just one out recorded by Southern Mississippi, the Rams still had leverage as they tried to pull through with a win. Star hitter Nogay once again came through for the Rams, dropping a base hit into left field, scoring McGuire at third and winning the game 3-2.
However, the Rams were not able to end the day with a sweep because in the second game, the Rams had a trickier time against Jacksonville University.
Hitting for Fordham went dry as they could not put up a run across five innings. For the Rams’ pitching, freshman Olivia Simcoe got her first starting pitching moment after closing out an inning against North Florida.
Simcoe just couldn’t get into the groove at first, giving up a two-run home run in the first and eight hits across four innings.
Miller came out to close things for the Rams, but the Rams would be shut out for the first time this year.
With one last game left, the Rams offense made a surging return, yet just fell short of Ball State University on Sunday.
Each team recorded four runs in each of their first innings, highlighted by offensive efforts from junior catcher Sydney Wells as well as Miller, who hit and pitched this game.
Wells went 2-for-4 drilling a two-run home run and recording a pair of RBIs as well as one run. Miller threw five innings, conceding six hits and recording three strikeouts. She drove in two runs, showing her multifaceted talents on the diamond.
In total, seven Rams scored a run and a hit in that game, and five different Rams recorded an RBI: graduate student Michela Carter, junior Allie Clark, Nogay, Petrovich and Wells.
With both teams sitting at 4-4, Ball State pulled away first in the third, hitting a solo home run. Fordham responded quickly, tacking on a pair of runs. Now, the score refused to stay in the Rams favor for long as Ball State answered back with four runs in the sixth, making it 6-10 in favor of the Cardinals.
This marked Wells’ two-run home run, narrowing the Ball State lead to two, yet they could not close the gap entirely, dropping the last game of the tournament, 8-10.
The Rams ended the tournament with a record of 2-3, recording 16 runs across five games. Next, they travel to the west coast for the Silicon Valley Classic in California, squaring up against four teams, University of Nevada, Reno, Santa Clara University, San Jose State University and Portland State University.
