Published: April 3, 2008

The Fordham University Rams opened up a three-game series against Atlantic 10 rival St. Bonaventure University on March 20, looking for their first conference victory of the season. The Rams carried a 10-game winning streak into Thursday’s contest, along with some early-season momentum. However, two strong pitching performances couldn’t help the Rams overcome the lack of an offensive spark in the first two games of the series.

The Rams had to endure certain difficulties during the three-game series.

“The past two days have been tough to play in because of the cold weather and even moreso because of the high winds,” said right fielder PJ Como, FCRH ’09.

Fordham’s starter, Tom Davis, pitched eight innings, allowing only one earned run on March 20, but the offense managed only three hits on the day. St. Bonaventure’s Jim Britton struck out 10 batters, allowing only two hits in a dominant performance.

“[Britton] pounded the strike zone, as evidenced by the zero walks,” said second baseman Eric Reese, CBA ’08. “He hit his spots and mixed his off-speed pitches very well.”

Reese came close to scoring the Rams’ only run in the first inning, moving to third base after a single, but couldn’t score. The game ended in a 4-0 loss, snapping the Rams’ winning streak.

Fordham put up another strong pitching performance on March 21 with Peter Kennelly’s, CBA ’09, six innings and eight strikeouts. Led by Como’s four hits, the Rams’ offense was also able to get back on track. Unfortunately, the Fordham bats still had some trouble in the clutch, as the team managed to scrounge together only two runs on the day. The game went into extra innings, where Fordham eventually fell to St. Bonaventure, 3-2.

The Rams came into the third and final game of the series on March 22 still looking for their first conference victory and trying to avoid the sweep.

“After Friday afternoon’s loss in 12 innings, we knew as a team we needed to come back and get the last one,” said left fielder Alex Kenny, FCRH ’11.

Fordham finally came up with the offensive firepower it had sorely been missing in the first two games, putting up an impressive nine runs on the way to a 9-7 win. The Rams were led offensively by Kenny, who contributed three hits and two RBIs.

“I was happy I could contribute in the third game as much as I did,” said Kenny. “However, it was a full team effort and everyone did [his] part in all nine innings today.”

Despite dropping two of three against St. Bonaventure, Kenelly doesn’t believe the team lost any momentum in the series, which ended on a positive note with the Rams’ first conference win.

“If anything, it was a good thing to learn early how competitive the Atlantic 10 is going to be this year and show us that we need to show up to play every game,” Kennelly said.