Midseason woes endured for Fordham University Volleyball this weekend, as the Rams played in six sets over two matches, led in all six sets and lost in all six sets at St. Louis University.
Fordham entered the series having played 11 of its last 13 matches at home — its trip to St. Louis was its longest of the 2025 campaign. The fruitless road trip moved the Rams to 1-10 in Atlantic 10 (A-10) play, while the struggling Billikens picked up a pair of pivotal wins to move to 4-7.
It’s the first full series that the Rams have been without their middle blocking pair, with junior superstar Tatum Holderied inactive with shin splints and sophomore standout Sophia Kuyn sidelined by an ankle injury. The results haven’t been pretty.
While freshmen Sophia Oliveira and Avery Boothe are now manning the middle, with the latter playing out of position, Fordham has allowed opponents to hit a blistering .261 in nine sets with its starters out. Opponents, meanwhile, have held the Rams to a .120 rate.
The mood is awfully similar to last year’s, when the Rams had their hopes shattered by injuries to Holderied and Kuyn, among others. That 2024 team, which was expected to make the postseason, finished last in the A-10 with a 3-15 record. The 2025 team, after a hot start, appears headed for a similar fate.
In Friday’s sweep, Fordham began each set with a 3-0 lead. It lost 25-14, 25-21, 25-21. Junior Lola Fernandez, who coach Ian Choi has begun to lean on as the team’s primary libero, led all Rams with 11 digs. Senior Audrey Brown had a solid all-around outing, logging a team-high eight kills, adding six digs, two blocks and an ace.
Unable to secure a set on Saturday, Fordham once again looked like the better team for much of the day, before paling 26-24, 25-21, 25-22. Fernandez one-upped herself with 13 digs, and Boothe earned her first collegiate kill with a putback in set two — she and her team appeared as surprised as they were excited, given that Fordham’s offense was designed to exclude Boothe given her inexperience at the position.
In crucial spots in each set, Fordham was unable to hold onto its lead. St. Louis posted 17, 17 and 16 kills over three frames on Saturday; during clutch moments, the Rams’ inexperienced blocking hurt their play, with the Billikens’ attackers finding wide-open seams to hit through.
The outcomes have been predictable: A team talented enough to compete — even without two of its top players — just can’t finish off sets against teams that are healthier and more experienced.
While the tone of the season now feels reminiscent to that of a funeral, the team has found a spark at each pin in recent weeks. With the team struggling to find efficiency from any of its outside hitters, sophomore Mila Micunovic has come out of nowhere to deliver a consistent punch on the strong-side.
Hammering 17 kills over the weekend to lead all players and setting a career high with 10 putaways on Saturday, Micunovic has engineered an impressive single-season turnaround after a slow start to the campaign. While the 6’4” Micunovic is still developing as a defender — Choi plays junior Erynn Sweeney and senior Zoe Talabong during her back-row rotations — the second-year appears to be a promising prospect to help pace the Fordham attack in years to come.
On the weaker side, sophomore southpaw Bridget Woodruff has tapped into her power stroke, hitting .210 over the course of a six-game heater. While she was not heavily involved in the offense against St. Louis, Woodruff did her best to make up for Fordham’s absent blockers, posting five rejections.
Woodruff subs in exclusively with senior setter Mackenzie Colvin, and the two have built the best chemistry of any setter-attacker duo on the team. Woodruff, who has blocks in all but one appearance, seems likely to fill the team’s starting opposite hitter role next season after senior Audrey Brown graduates.
With the help of Woodruff, Fordham notched 11 total blocks in Saturday’s match — the team’s first double-digit output in three full weeks. Oliveira led the way with a career-best seven blocks in the outing this weekend.
Fordham, without Holderied and Kuyn, has seen a stark dropoff in its blocking numbers after leading the nation for much of the season. The club averaged 12.5 blocks through August and September; thus far, it’s averaged just 6.8 in October.
Now in must-win mode, the Rams will need to snatch a second victory against the A-10’s lone winless club, the University of Rhode Island, on Wednesday at 5 p.m. After taking the trip down the I-95, Fordham returns home for its senior weekend against Davidson College.
The third-to-last series of the Rams’ year will be its last at home, as Fordham hopes to take down a 5-6 Wildcats squad on the heels of a three-match win-streak. Saturday’s match is at 3 p.m., and seniors Colvin, Brown and Talabong will be honored before Sunday’s 1 p.m. tilt.
