Every team enters the season with the same goal in mind. That, of course, being to claim the conference championship. And while every team sets that goal, only one team can fulfill it. Fordham has set that goal and achieved it, not once, not twice, but three straight times.
Under head coach Brian Bacharach, the Fordham Water Polo program has reached new heights. Prior to 2021, Fordham Water Polo had never won a Mid-Atlantic Water Polo Conference (MAWPC) championship. Fast forward to the present day as the Rams celebrate their third straight conference title, once more inking an automatic berth into the NCAA Water Polo Championship.
Prior to Sunday, no East Coast team had won three consecutive conference championships since the United States Naval Academy from 2006 to 2008. Fifteen years later, the Fordham Rams etch their name in a historic and exclusive club.
The MAWPC championship began on Friday, Nov. 17, but the #12 ranked Fordham Rams wouldn’t have to play until Saturday, earning a bye to the semifinals as they claimed the top seed with a perfect 12-0 conference record.
Needing just one win to reach the title game, Fordham would square off against a 17-13 Wagner College team that was narrowly skirted by George Washington University a day earlier with a 15-14 win. An extra day of rest seemed to do the Rams just fine as they scored the first five goals of the contest. It was a 7-3 Fordham lead at the end of the first quarter with freshman Barnabas Eppel netting a hat trick in the opening frame alone.
The Rams would extend their lead to six by halftime as junior Jacopo Parrella tallied a first half hat trick to put Fordham up 12-6. Wagner showed some life in the third with a five-goal frame, but the Rams scored six of their own to keep the Seahawks at bay. Leading by seven entering the final quarter of play, Bacharach was able to give junior goalkeeper Thomas Lercari a bit of a rest, subbing him out in the fourth as Fordham cruised to a 23-12 victory.
Parrella led the way with an eight-point game, notching a game-high five goals while fellow junior Lucas Nieto Jasny added seven points with a hat trick and four assists. Eppel finished with four markers and senior Christos Loupakis added three of his own as four different Rams posted hat tricks in the offensive onslaught.
The MAWPC championship game would provide a much tougher test for the Rams. On the backs of wins against Johns Hopkins University and Bucknell University, #2 seeded Navy rolled into the title game with a 21-5 record. Ranked 18th in the national polls, Navy had already met Fordham twice this season, putting up an excellent effort but falling short by two goals and three goals respectively.
Not unlike their first two battles this season, the championship game proved to be a tightly contested affair. The Rams took a 2-0 lead early in the first on tallies from Parrella and junior Luca Silvestri. A marker from freshman Balazs Berenyi made it 3-1 Fordham, but Navy responded with the next two goals to even it at three. Nieto Jasny scored with 22 seconds left in the first as Fordham jumped back ahead by one.
Navy gained the upper hand in the second, taking a 6-5 lead on a pair of tallies from freshman Kiefer Black, but once again, the Rams pounced in the final minute as Loupakis netted one with 54 seconds to take a 6-6 tie into halftime.
Both sides traded markers in the third, leaving us with an 8-8 tie entering the final frame. Silvestri’s second tally of the game gave Rams a 10-9 edge with five and a half minutes to play. Then it was Lercari’s time to step up in net, making a couple key saves to protect a slim Fordham lead.
With three minutes to play, Nieto Jasny gave the Rams a sliver of breathing room, netting his second goal to give Fordham an 11-9 lead. Some excellent defense in the final minutes and one last marker from Silvestri sealed a 12-10 victory and a Rams championship.
“Winning three straight championships is very difficult,” remarked Bacharach, who continues to cement himself as one of the program’s best coaches with another conference title. “Our guys executed big time in the fourth quarter. I’m so proud of them for their effort today and all season long.”
Bacharach received Coach of the Tournament honors, while junior George Papanikolaou was named MVP. Papanikolaou and Parrella were named to the All-Tournament First Team while Silvestri received Second Team honors.
An automatic berth to the NCAA Water Polo Championship is nothing out of the ordinary for a Fordham program that has enjoyed immense success in-conference. However, this year has brought forth a new level of excitement.
The Rams are typically the lowest ranked team nationally in the traditional nine-team field. In the past two seasons, they’ve had to face Princeton University in a play-in game the week before the official NCAA tournament begins. This season, however, the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC) declined their automatic qualification, reducing the tournament field to eight teams.
For the first time in program history, Fordham will make the trip out to the West Coast for the official NCAA Water Polo Championship. Tournament play begins on Friday, Dec. 1, with the Rams as the #7 seed set to take on the #2 seeded University of California.
Fordham played Cal earlier in the season as part of their west coast trip, falling 18-11, but getting within three goals before a late fourth quarter Cal surge put the game out of reach. It is worth noting that Cal was without one of their best 2-meter defenders in that regular season contest, so the Rams will undoubtedly be put to the test this weekend.
Fordham’s MAWPC success is something to be marveled at. However, they’ve been unable to break through in the NCAA tournament, falling in back to back seasons to a rival Princeton program, which ironically completed a three peat of their own in the Northeast Water Polo Conference (NWPC). While they’ll avoid Princeton this year to open NCAAs, a battle with a Cal team ranked #2 in the entire nation doesn’t provide much in the way of relief.
Fordham and Cal will square off on Dec. 1 at 7 p.m., with all championship games being held at the University of Southern California. The Rams face a steep battle ahead and the odds are unequivocally stacked against them. Coach Bacharach isn’t one for moral victories, but I’ll extend one to him anyway.
The fact that Fordham is one of eight teams still standing in December is truly a remarkable feat. The program continues to be on a steep upwards trajectory, and one can only dream about what new heights lie ahead in the upcoming years.
