By Matt Rosenfeld
The Rams enter this week’s Atlantic 10 tournament as the fourth seed and begin play on Friday at 2 p.m. Christian Wiloejo/ The Fordham Ram.
It is March, which means that along with warmer weather comes college basketball madness. Fordham’s women’s basketball team is no different. The Rams celebrated Senior Day and finished up their regular season on Sunday with a 54-46 win over Davidson. Fordham has clinched the four seed in the upcoming Atlantic 10 tournament as it looks to get back to the NCAA Tournament for the second straight season.
Sunday afternoon was the final regular season game for four Fordham seniors as the Rams took on Davidson College at the Rose Hill Gym. The seniors, who included Emily Tapio, Tiffany Ruffin, Taryn Durant and Liz Milner, are the second most-winningest senior class in Fordham history, having accumulated 81 wins in their four years in the Bronx.
Following a pregame ceremony, Fordham took the court against the Wildcats, which it had defeated 66-45 on Jan. 28 in North Carolina. Fordham held a solid lead for the entire first half. The Rams started the game three-for-three from beyond the arc to help get out to an early 11-4 lead. Fordham extended its lead to 13 points twice in the first half, the latter of which came on a Tapio free throw to make the score 28-15 with 3:48 remaining in the first half.
Davidson would cut the lead to 31-21 at halftime, but Fordham looked in control. The Wildcats shot just 26 percent from the field in the first half and were dominated on the boards by the Rams, but mostly junior Samantha Clark, who had eight rebounds in the first half alone.
The second half saw Fordham get the lead back up to 13, 38-25, just five minutes into the second stanza. But, that is when the tide turned towards Davidson.
In an eight minute span, Davidson went on a 17-2 run, stifling Fordham’s offense and hitting shot after shot, giving the Wildcats a 42-40 lead with just over seven minutes remaining.
Fordham would respond, however, ripping off a 9-2 run of its own to grab the lead back at 49-44, now with the game clock down to two minutes.
The two teams traded a pair of free throws, but a steal by Ruffin with 33 seconds remaining sealed the closer-than-expected win on Senior Day.
Two pregame honorees led Fordham in its win. Tapio finished with a double-double on the day, scoring 12 points to go along with 10 rebounds. Ruffin provided 11 points, four rebounds and four assists of her own.
“This game gave us a chance to look at what we really need to work on,” Tapio said. “And it helped us work on staying together through other teams’ runs.”
The team now turns its focus to the aforementioned A-10 Tournament in Richmond, Virginia. The defending champion Rams locked up the four seed, behind (in order) George Washington, Dayton and Duquesne. A top-four seed gives Fordham a bye all the way into the quarterfinals of the tournament, meaning it will not begin its title defense until Friday at 2 p.m.
“I think this was actually good for us,” Gaitley said after the game. “It helped us realize that conference play, the conference tournament is going to be exactly what we just faced. It’s going to be a grind. So we have to learn to deal with being up on runs, being down on runs and being able to fight back.”
Fordham’s likely opponent, if seeding holds, would be the host team Richmond. The Spiders, who hold the five seed, would need to win a second round game on Thursday in order to advance to face Fordham. The Rams faced Richmond once this season, in their conference home opener. The result was a dramatic 65-64 overtime victory in which freshman Danielle Padovano hit a game-winning three pointer with seconds remaining.
Other opponents could be St. Bonaventure and UMass, who are the 12 and 13 seeds respectively. Those two teams will play Wednesday for the right to play Richmond the following day. Fordham defeated both teams in its regular season matchups.
“There’s an extreme amount of parity [in the Atlantic 10],” Tapio said. “We have no idea who we’re going to play, but for us it doesn’t matter the team or the jersey, we’re going to work on ourselves and play our style of basketball. We’re going to focus on being the number one defensive team in the conference and owning that.”
“For us, it is what it is,” Gaitley said. “We play at two o’clock on Friday, and we’re going to be the best team we can be at two o’clock on Friday.”
