By Brendan Tague
The Fordham water polo team was 2-2 heading into the Bison Invitational, with wins against Gannon and Salem International and losses to No. 15 Navy and Johns Hopkins. Over the weekend, the Rams dropped both of their Saturday games, facing Navy once again and No. 17 Bucknell.
The Rams came to Lewisberg hoping to prove that they could beat the No. 15 Midshipmen. However, despite playing Navy goal-for-goal for the first half, lack of capitalization on man-up opportunities proved to be the Rams’ downfall. Seniors Andrew Gonzalez, Landon Kern and Davis DeFontes each scored one goal along with freshman Ryan Guso, while freshmen Diego Delgado and Magnus Sims each assisted two scores in the contest.
After swallowing yet another bitter loss to Navy, Fordham had a short rest before their next match against the hosting team, Bucknell. A close first quarter ended in a 0-0 tie, but the Bison ran away with the lead, scoring 10 in the remaining three quarters. Fordham was only able to score one goal in the game, from DeFontes.
“There were a lot of opportunities,” head coach Bill Harris stated. “We worked really hard on defense but we were just absolutely flat with our shooting and scoring.”
A winless Saturday had the Rams discouraged, but by Sunday morning they were fired up and ready to rebound as they took back-to-back wins against Mercyhurst and George Washington. After its weak offensive performance in Saturday’s final game, Fordham came out and scored a combined 24 goals for the day.
In the first fixture, Fordham outscored Mercyhurst 12-7, featuring a hat trick from Delgado. Still, the team was unable to score on 6-on-5, despite 22 ejections being called between the two teams. Later in the day, Fordham won a close game against George Washington and improved to 4-4, which brought their record back up to .500. Junior R.J. Simmons scored five goals and the Rams won the game 12-8.
Sophomore Alex Jahns started every game in goal, and was relieved by sophomore Bryce Charles and senior Patrick Harrigan. The 2-2 record on the weekend gives the team a 4-4 record overall this season.
The Rams have a weekend off before they play their first game at home on Saturday, Sept. 26 against MIT at 2 p.m.
