Less than a month to go before the Atlantic 10 Championship, and the women’s basketball team continues to play like winners. Coming off a road loss against the University of Dayton, Fordham played two home games this past week, winning both and defending the home court. 

Their opponents, Saint Joseph’s University and St. Bonaventure faced the Rams after a tough playing schedule. Fordham had not gone three days without playing a game since the start of the month. Head coach, Stephanie Gaitley, noted how tired the team was and even mentioned giving them a day off prior to the St. Bonaventure game. On the Fordham Women’s Basketball Twitter account, Gaitley said, “I know I have some tired kids. I’m super proud of the effort.”

It wasn’t easy to continue playing for such a long stretch of time, but the Rams made it look like a walk in the park. The team was all smiles on the bench as they got ready to face the Saint Joseph’s Hawks. Even though the Hawks started off with the lead, Fordham made sure that it did not last for long, going on a huge run at the end of the first half.

It wasn’t just scoring that counted for this win. Rebounds, steals and blocks all combined for a major success for the Rams. Junior guard Anna DeWolfe contributed to a lot of the scoring, and senior forward Megan Jonassen had seven rebounds, adding to many of the second chance opportunities that Fordham had. On top of this, Jonassen had four points in her 19 minutes of game play. It was senior guard Asiah Dingle who had the next highest amount of rebounds, accounting for six of the team’s overall 32 rebounds. Dingle also had four steals out of the team’s overall 11. She showed how versatile she can be on both sides of the court, but  it does not stop for Dingle there. She also had nine points and five assists, proving she is not lacking in ways to contribute. Senior forward Kaitlyn Downey had the second highest number of rebounds for the team, with four overall, contributing eight points as well. 

Despite a successful game, the team had quite a few turnovers. These turnovers, 19 in total, allowed the Hawks to play catch up against the Rams. The team also shot just 15.4% from three-point range. Comparatively, field goal percentage was struggling as the team was successful in 28.3% of the shots attempted. 

While the game ultimately ended 55-35 in favor of Fordham, the Rams had quite a few offensive things to work on and knew this going into the next game against the Bonnies.

Coach Gaitley had given the team a break two days before the game, something that she usually does not like to do. As mentioned earlier, Gaitley noticed that her team was tired and gave them a well-deserved break. When they returned, the Rams secured the win by a final of 62-54.

During the first half of the game, Fordham held on to a narrow lead, only outscoring the Bonnies by four points. St. Bonaventure put up a hard battle, doing what it could to stick with the Rams. With six second chance points and 13 points off of turnovers, Fordham changed the story in this game, as their field goal percentage was 42.9%, a large increase from the previous game.

Jonassen helped out once again, exploding for 12 rebounds and eight points in her 26 minutes of game play. Graduate student guard Kendell Heremaia had eight rebounds and four points. Dingle had three steals along with her 14 points and five rebounds. Overall, the team had a strong defensive performance that pushed the team up to 15-5 on the season. 

The Rams have a one-week break before their next game on Saturday, Feb. 5 against Duquesne. The team travels to Pittsburgh this weekend and begins their stretch of road games in the new month of February.