The Fordham Rams come into 2018 reloaded and ready to build off the ups-and-downs of a 27-24 campaign in 2017.
The Rams started the season hot, climbing to as high as first place in the ultra-competitive Atlantic-10 Conference. However, a nine-game slide between April 18–30 set the team back and caused them to miss the playoffs all together.
“Sometimes when a few guys start slumping everybody starts slumping,” head coach Kevin Leighton said. “A big part of that losing streak was we just couldn’t score runs. We talk about it with our guys constantly – you can’t get too high on the good times or too low on the bad.”
Scoring runs will come at a premium this year for a Fordham team that lost stud seniors Mark Donadio and Luke Stampfl. The duo combined for over 25 percent of the team’s total RBI and will have to replace that level of production.
Coach Leighton has seen this before though, and has confidence that his team can fill the void.
“We may have to score runs in different ways this year,” he said. “Some years you lose big-time hitters and somehow the next year you’re able to replace them.”
The performance of a few new freshman positional players will determine whether the Rams can score enough runs to pull out important wins this year.
Freshmen Jake MacKenzie and Nick Labella have really stood out during the offseason and will be relied on to contribute from the get-go. Another freshman who may be ready to contribute is C.J. Vasquez, an infielder and 2016 HSBN All-American from Miami.
While this freshman trio remains exciting, the strength of this team is obviously the incredibly deep pitching staff.
Though they lost senior ace Jimmy Murphy to the MLB draft, team captain Ben Greenberg is back after missing all of last season with a back injury. The senior is a leader whose example and attitude are infectious. Simply having his presence back on the mound should give Fordham a competitive boost.
Junior Reiss Knehr is back as well after a prolific season as the teams No. 2 starter. Knehr could be the next MLB-bound Ram with a good variety of plus pitches. His fastball regularly hits between 91-95 and he’s got a killer changeup that freezes hitters, while his cutter and slider regularly hit in the low 80s. As Coach Leighton said, “When he’s locating his fastball it’s going to be a tough day for the opponent.”
Leighton also highlighted Anthony DiMeglio, Mike Cowell, Brian Weissert, John Stankiewicz and Joe Quintal as key members of “one of the deepest” rotations he has ever coached.
“We should be much improved on the mound from last year,” Leighton told Axcess Baseball. “We just have so many more options.”
Out of the bullpen, the team is fortunate to have two sophomores in Alvin Melendez and Kyle Martin that had tremendous freshman campaigns. Both were trusted in crucial spots and will look to build on that in 2018.
If this impressive stable of arms receive enough run support, Fordham should definitely find themselves back in the A-10 playoffs.
From there? Anything can happen. For example, Davidson College entered A-10 play as the No. 5 seed last year and made it all the way to the NCAA Super Regionals.
Fordham also runs into a bit of scheduling luck this season, as they miss perennial conference contenders St. Louis and Virginia Commonwealth.
“The goals are the same year in and year out,” Leighton said. “We were close last year, but we weren’t able to hold on. This year, the guys have really bought in.”
