Momentum tends to be a fickle thing for sports teams, often coming and going throughout a season as if it were an ebbing tide nipping at the shoreline. Unfortunately, Fordham Track and Field’s momentum seems to have entered the recession portion of this cycle; every bit of positive mojo that the squad previously had vanishing into the spring air this past weekend at the Larry Ellis Invitational at Princeton University. The Rams struggled during the two days they were there, with almost every athlete on the squad performing well below the level they have proven themselves capable of competing at. However, that is not to say there were no bright spots; sadly, they were just few and far between.
In terms of the Rams’ first day at the meet, sophomore Leia Ruvo provided the first of these rare bright spots with her impressive performance in the women’s long jump, not only setting a new season-best mark of 17’ 8 ¾” in the event but also registering a solid 11th-place finish for the Rams. However, apart from this strong opening performance by Ruvo, the women’s team only had one other top-10 performance on the day: freshman Meredith Gotzman’s ninth-place finish in the women’s 3000-meter steeplechase on the back of her time of 10:53.56.
Unfortunately, the men’s team didn’t do much better as a squad than the women’s overall lackluster performance. Yet, they managed to record the Rams’ strongest collective single-event performance on the day in the men’s 1500-meter run. This small team victory came largely because of the efforts of junior Rodolfo Sanchez and graduate student Colin Flood, as Sanchez’s astounding time of 3:49.91 was good enough to claim silver on the day. Flood finished close behind timewise, with a 3:51.47 mark, despite coming in 14th.
Finally of note for the Rams on the first day was senior Steven Zucca’s performance in the men’s 10,000-meter run. He propelled himself into second place and claimed another silver for Fordham with his time of 30:33.98.
Turning to the second day of the meet, the Rams once again put in a rather abysmal set of performances as a team, with only a select few Fordham athletes proving to be competitive in their respective events.
Senior Skylar Harris was amongst the few Rams who figured things out. Her strong performance in the women’s 100-meter dash, an 11th-place finish behind a solid time of 12.37 seconds, helped kick off what little second-day success Fordham could find.
The 100-meter hurdles also proved to be one of the few fruitful races for the Rams, as sophomores Nicole Lytle and Kylie Ritz each ran into the upper echelon of the event’s field, finishing 11th and 12th, respectively. Moreover, this same duo combined for another pair of strong finishes in the women’s 400-meter hurdles, Ritz being the high-finisher this time around with her ninth-place finish compared to Lytle’s 11th-place one.
After this successful pair of races by Lytle and Ritz, the Rams hit their high point of the weekend in the men’s 800-meter dash. There, Fordham achieved some degree of team domination over an event’s field, with the aforementioned Flood (1:54.48) and Sanchez (1:55.42) finishing first and second. Moreover, the Rams registered two more runners in the race’s top 15, as sophomore Trevor Rinn finished quite comfortably in sixth place with a time of 1:56.02, while freshman John Corrigan ran himself into 11th place with his own time of 1:56.89.
The Rams additionally saw a trio of their athletes finish in the top 10 later in the day in the women’s high jump, with Ruvo leading the charge in the event, capturing her sixth-place-worthy mark of 5’ 2 1/4”. Fellow sophomore Zoe Arakelian and freshman Lexi Fujita finished just behind her in seventh and ninth. The men’s team also recorded a top-10 finish in their iteration of high jump, freshman DaRon Elam claiming seventh place with a season-best mark of 6’ 4 3/4”. Finally of note for the Rams on day two was another one of Ruvo’s performances, as she continued her strong weekend by recording a 10th-place worthy mark of 37’ 1 1/4” in the women’s long jump.
Having said all this, the Fordham track and field team will have an almost immediate opportunity to rebound from this frustrating weekend. The team will travel to the beautiful greystone confines of Yale University this coming weekend for the Mark Young Invitational. While there, it is imperative that Fordham turns things around, as this competition at Yale is their last meet before they enter their most important and grueling stretch of competitions of the year: one that includes the fabled Penn Relays, the always-important Atlantic 10 Championships, and the highly competitive ECAC/IC4A Championships.
