It’s been a travel-filled non-conference slate for Fordham Women’s Volleyball, but after yet another quality weekend of play, the Road Trip Rams are finally coming home.
Following a 2-1 showing at Columbia University, Fordham ventured south to Teaneck, N.J., for a two-game bout at the Fairleigh Dickinson University (FDU) Invitational. The Rams’ resolve was tested, with Lafayette College and FDU pushing Fordham to five sets in a pair of thrilling contests.
Friday’s clash with Lafayette proved to be Fordham’s tightest match to date: all five sets between the two clubs were decided by four points or less. The Rams came out strong, earning a 25-23 win in set one over an unrelenting Leopards squad.
In set two, the Leopards leaped out to an early lead. Lafayette clung to a 24-20 lead late before Fordham rattled off six consecutive points; with graduate student Whitley Moody at the service line, junior Audrey Brown tallied three kills, netting the Rams a 2-0 advantage.
In set three, it was junior Zoe Talabong who led the charge, posting three kills as a pin hitter. Talabong seems to have found her groove — she notched nine kills against Columbia and seven more against Lafayette — after receiving surprisingly little play time after a 2023 campaign that saw her start 24 of 28 matches and rack up 226 kills and 232 digs.
Despite Talabong’s effort, it was Lafayette that took the set, pulling away with three consecutive points after the game sat tied at 22.
It was a nearly wire-to-wire win for the Leopards in set four, as they continuously staved off Ram rallies to tie the match with a 25-21 victory. The Rams kept things close thanks to sophomore Whitney Woodrow, who kept the group in contention with six assists, three service aces and two kills in the frame.
In the bridge set, it was Lafayette who stormed out to a 4-0 lead. From there, it was a seven-assist spurt from Woodrow that pulled the Rams to within one. Despite a heroic effort, the war of attrition was won by the Leopards, who nabbed a 15-13 set five win taking the match, 3-2.
The Rams received contributions from top to bottom in the defeat. Brown led the way offensively, tallying 19 kills on a staggering .357 hitting percentage. Senior libero Ryan Naumann tacked on a double-double, including 18 digs and 10 assists.
It was a bit of an opposite-day for Fordham in the aggregate, though, as they had 11 service aces but just five blocks. Typically, the Rams seldom post over three service aces per match, while they routinely flirt with or surpass the 10-block milestone.
After such a heartbreaking defeat, the Rams needed to turn the page quickly for their mid-evening matchup with FDU on Saturday. FDU had other plans, surging to a 25-19 set one win after a back-and-forth battle.
Having lost four consecutive sets, the Rams appeared to be in dire straits. That is, until sophomore Tatum Holderied shifted momentum back in Fordham’s favor, patrolling the net with four hammers in set two, giving the squad a 25-14 win.
In set three, it was Holderied who continued to dominate: she stymied the Knights by sending four balls back and adding three more kills to her total.
With an opportunity to put the game away and close out the weekend with a win, Fordham was edged by FDU in set four, 25-20.
After nine hard-fought sets in just north of 24 hours, Fordham faced a pivotal tie-breaker to avoid leaving New Jersey with a winless weekend. With the pressure on, the Rams were nearly perfect: they levied a .522 hitting percentage without a single attack error, taking a much-needed 15-13 win over the nagging Knights by making a successful challenge to overturn the game’s final point.
Fordham was boosted by a three-headed monster above the net, with senior Lauryn Sweeney, freshman Sophia Kuyn and Moody combining for 10 kills in the frame. Holderied was a sensation, spiking a career-high 10 kills and tying a career-high in total blocks with 10. Otherwise, it was the dynamic duo of Brown and Moody who buoyed the victorious Rams: Brown had 13 kills on a .281 hitting rate, while Moody had 15 on a .308 clip. It was Woodrow doing the setting, continuing her prolific 2024 season with 38 assists and reaching a milestone in the process: in just her second year, she’s reached the 1,000 assist threshold.
Naumann starred again, too, racking up a career-high 21 digs; she and Brown were named to the weekend’s all-tournament teams for their performances.
A 1-1 record for the week doesn’t do these Rams justice; the crew wrestled valiantly with two strong non-conference opponents and flashed their clutch gene as dusk turned to night, walking away from the road trip on a high note.
The club aims to parlay this momentum into a long-awaited homecoming. Fordham hosts the Rose Hill Classic this weekend, hosting Binghamton University on Friday at 4 p.m., and Seton Hall University on Saturday at 4:30 p.m.. With these two games, the Rams have a chance at entering conference play on a three-game heater, one which they’ll need in order to prevail amidst a packed Atlantic 10 pool.
Before we get ahead of ourselves, we ought to allow the Rams to relish a well-deserved six days of rest; we also ought to show up in droves at the Rose Hill Gymnasium this Friday to celebrate the club’s return home.
