Take a new team full of players who have never met one another, with different playing styles and backgrounds, and tell them to mesh by season's end. Tell them to grow as a unit. Tell them to win games, earn experience and still love the game. It is a hard task for any coach, and even harder for a group of college girls to comply with. That is what the Fordham women's basketball team had to go through this year.
The Lady Rams ended their season this past Saturday at 0-29 and 0-14 in the league. This sets the record for the most losses in a single season in not only the Atlantic 10 but in all of NCAA Division I basketball. Fordham's women's basketball coach, Cathy Andruzzi, commented on the season with great optimism for next year.
"Our players worked very hard this season," she said. "They were a very young team and we just look forward to post-season and next year," she said.
The last four games of the season were against Xavier, Temple, Charlotte and George Washington. The Lady Rams played honorably and consistently fought for the score in every game, regardless of their problems with meshing on the court.
On Feb. 20, Fordham played the Xavier Lady Musketeers in a game that ended 65-42. They started the game with a lot of momentum, including a jump shot by junior forward Takita Earl that brought the score to a close 11-8.
The Lady Rams continued to fight, revealing the game's star players: freshman forward Alex Zamora, who was the backbone for most of the plays while on the court, freshman guard Megan Mahoney, who scored a team-high 11 points. Junior forward/center Kassie Humphries scored 10 points, collected six rebounds and had two blocks.
"I really tried to focus on defense because they had really big girls," Zamora said. "Obviously they had a height advantage over us but they were also thick so my goal was to play a good defense, run a lot of plays and then offense would come."
The Lady Rams went on to play the Temple Owls on Feb. 23 and lost 65-46. This was another hard fight as the Temple players fought aggressively and the Lady Rams had to consistently catch up and match the score, at one point making four straight baskets started with a jumper by Humphries, putting Fordham in the lead. Other player highlights were junior guard Annie Zopf's 16 points, Mahoney's 13 and senior forward Beth Troutt's seven.
Next, the Rams played the Charlotte 49ers on Feb. 7. As it was the team's last home game, it was Senior Night for the Lady Rams. Beth Troutt, the team's only senior, had a great night to go along with her celebration, making four three-pointers in the game and scoring 14 points overall. Zopf also garnered 18 points for the team and Mahoney scored 14. The Lady rams lost 79-55.
The Fordham ladies played their last game of the season at George Washington on Mar. 1. It was their final shot to avoid their aforementioned record, and their fight for victory was admirable but unsuccessful. The Lady Rams lost to GW 66-27. After a strong start from Mahoney's three pointer and Humphries' jumper, they started to slow their pace and let the margin of the score increase as the they allowed for 13 turnovers.
The Fordham women's basketball team has learned valuable lessons from this season and can only hope that next season will be filled with victory both on and off the court.
2008 Woodie Awards
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