Women's Basketball Travels to George Mason for Wednesday Night Tip

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Bronx, N.Y. – Fordham (9-4, 0-1) saw a five-game win streak snapped on Sunday against La Salle in its conference-opener. The Rams will look to get back in the win column at George Mason (6-6, 0-0) on Wednesday night at 7 p.m.
 
Last Time Out
In the 50th all-time meeting between La Salle and Fordham, the Explorers rallied from a 14-point deficit to defeat the Rams on Sunday inside the Rose Hill Gym, snapping a 12-game home win streak. Leading by 12 at halftime and 14 early in the third, La Salle fought back and outscored the hosts, 48-27, in the second half, including a 26-8 fourth-quarter effort that saw the visitors take their first lead of the game with just over three minutes to play.
 
Anna DeWolfe led all scorers with 28 points, matching her season-high for a third time and making it seven straight contests with 20 or more points, doing so on 11-of-18 shooting, matching her career-high for makes, with six rebounds, two steals, and an assist over all 40 minutes. Asiah Dingle scored 13 of her 14 points in the first half and chipped in six boards, three dimes, and a steal before fouling out, as did Kendell Heremaia, who returned from a one-game absence. The duo combined to shoot 7-of-28 from the field. The Rams shot 35.4% overall while the Explorers shot 44.6%, including 16-of-29 in the second half (55.2%). Fordham hauled in a whopping 17 offensive rebounds of 38 total with all seven players nabbing at least one and five grabbing two or more. Read all about it here.
 
Series History with George Mason
The Rams own a 9-3 all-time record with the Patriots dating back to 2001. The two schools met four times prior to Mason joining the Atlantic 10 in 2013 with them winning three. However, since joining the league, Fordham has eight straight wins, including last season's 62-32 home win on New Year's Day, with the 32 points serving as the second-fewest allowed in program history. The Patriots were held to 21.1% shooting despite committing just 10 turnovers.
 
Triple D - DeWolfe, Dingle, Downey
Shut the front door! So far this season, the Fordham trio have been gnarly, righteous, dynamite, and, perhaps most importantly, the bomb-dot-com. All three already have one A-10 Player of the Week award so far this season. Combined, they make up 65.7% of the team's scoring on a combined 42.6% shooting overall. They are the real deal. For context for the uninitiated, this entire blurb is related to Guy Fieri's Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives.
 
Hungry Like DeWolfe
The reigning Atlantic 10 Co-Player of the Year became the 24th Ram to reach 1,000 career points on December 12 against Lafayette, doing so on a patented mid-range jumper, hitting nothing but net. Her season average is back above 20 after becoming just the third Ram to ever finish a season at that number last year, and has now scored 20 or more in seven straight games. At the end of her sophomore campaign, DeWolfe ranked 22nd nationally with 20.8 points per game, one of seven underclassmen in the top-25, and was 25th with 37.3 minutes played and 29th with 2.7 threes per contest. DeWolfe has started 63 consecutive contests in her collegiate career, beginning with her first game against #16 Notre Dame at home in front of a sold out Rose Hill Gym where she nearly triple-doubled (10 points, 9 rebounds, 9 assists) in a close five-point loss to the Irish. DeWolfe was a three-time Rookie of the Week and All-Rookie selection that year while leading all freshmen in minutes played (1,152).
 
DeWolfe leads the Atlantic 10 in scoring (21.0 points per game) on 45.0% overall shooting, 37.6% from distance, and 84.6% from the line. She is second on the team with 35 assists and 23 steals and is 5th nationally with 38.2 minutes per game and 11th in points per game.
 
Variety Pack
The Rams have had three different Atlantic 10 Players of the Week this season. First it was Asiah Dingle after averaging 26.0 points, 9.5 rebounds, 5.0 steals, and 3.0 assists over wins against Quinnipiac and Seton Hall to kick the season off. The week after it was Kaitlyn Downey after averaging 19.5 points at Notre Dame and against Michigan State, including a career-high-matching 24 points in the win over the Spartans. Most recently it was Anna DeWolfe, who scored 28 points in back-to-back wins over Stony Brook and Princeton, with 4.0 assists and 3.0 steals. It's only the third time in program history three different Rams have garnered the award and just the second time in the A-10 era - last year DeWolfe, Downey, and Heremaia earned Player of the Week at least once.
 
Kendell Here-oh-my!
Kendell Heremaia became the 23rd Ram to reach 1,000 points for her career, doing so at Seton Hall in the second game of this season, matching her career-high of 29 points and shooting a blistering 8-of-11 from behind the arc, just one off the single-game program record. The New Zealand international has since ascended to 20th all-time with 1,111 career points and is currently seventh all-time with 188 made three-pointers, with Suzanne Maguire ('97) next at 200.
 
Heremaia has racked up 1,111 points, 698 rebounds, 282 assists, and 125 steals over 129 career appearances and 102 starts, the latter two numbers ranking fifth and 10th all-time. Only six other Rams have reached the 1,000-point, 500-rebound, 200-assist, 100-steal plateaus, most recently Samantha Clark ('16), but also featuring Becky Peters ('12) and Abigail Corning ('14) that have played under Coach Gaitley. Among that group, Heremaia has the second-fewest points and third-fewest rebounds and steals, but the second-most assists.
 
Dingle All the Way
The Boston native was a shoe-in for the year's first A-10 Player of the Week award, averaging 26.0 points, 9.5 rebounds, 5.0 steals, and 3.0 assists over 39.5 minutes of two exciting wins to begin the campaign. Through 13 contests, Dingle leads the team in assists and steals, is second in scoring and is third in rebounding. For her career across three schools, she has accumulated 1,197 points, an average of 12.9 per game, across 93 appearances and 76 starts. She is a 42.1% career shooting with 3.6 rebounds, 3.0 assists, and 2.1 steals per game.
 
Chairwomen of the Boards
Fordham was beastly on the boards last year, averaging 38.4 per contest and with the 22nd-highest rebounding margin in the country (7.6), holding opponents to just 30.8 boards. The Rams grabbed 213-of-691 rebounds on the offensive glass, or 30.8%, and had six players with at least 17 offensive boards. Downey was 35th in the country with 10.2 rebounds per game and 11th overall with 8.5 defensive boards per game, while Jonassen was 20th with 3.9 o-boards per game. Jonassen (186-of-329) has more offensive boards in her career than defensive.
 
Through 13 games, Fordham is averaging 33.4 boards per game with a whopping 152 offensive rebounds out of 434 (35.0%). Jonassen unsurprisingly leads the way with 39 o-boards with Asiah Dingle (26), Millie Prior (17), Kaitlyn Downey (16), and Matilda Flood (13) each just behind her, all averaging one per game or better.
 
Gaitley's "Most Challenging" Nonconference Schedule Yet
Fordham women's basketball head coach Stephanie Gaitley called this year's nonconference slate her "most challenging" of any of her teams in her career. It featured five predicted conference favorites (Quinnipiac, Baylor, Stony Brook, Princeton, Florida Gulf Coast), one runner-up (Manhattan), and three third-place finishers (Seton Hall, Michigan State, Houston), plus two NCAA champions (Baylor, Notre Dame), and six programs that received votes in at least one national preseason poll. Fordham had one top-25 win (Princeton) and four top-100 wins (Quinnipiac, Michigan State, Houston, Stony Brook), and finished nonconference 49th in the NET rankings.
 
Nationally Speaking (as of 1/10)
Like last year, stoppages in play lead to falling down the national and conference ranks in many categories, so per-game averages take on an added importance. Among their Division I peers, the Rams are 30th in free-throw percentage (.765), 56th in turnovers per game (14.2), 66th in turnover margin (3.38), and 89th in assist/turnover ratio (0.99).
 
At the individual level, Anna DeWolfe is 5th in minutes played per game (38.2) and 40th in total minutes (496), 11th in scoring (21.0), 10th in field-goal attempts (240) and 13th in makes (108), and is 40th with 35 made threes and 2.7 per game. Asiah Dingle is 51st with 2.54 steals per game and 49th with 33 total steals.
 
Deeper Dive Into Games Won
Through nine wins this season, the Rams are outscoring opponents 71.7 to 57.3 (+14.3). Fordham is shooting 43.9% from the floor and 33.7% from distance and converting nearly half of its two-point attempts (49.3%). Fordham is outrebounding foes, 34.4 to 29.6, with 107 offensive boards out of 310 total (34.5%). Opponents are committing 18.6 turnovers per game with the Rams notching 9.2 steals and 3.4 blocks per contest and committing just 14.4 turnovers themselves.
 
Anna DeWolfe is leading the charge with 22.8 points per game on 47.7% shooting overall, 39.7% from deep, and 84.2% from the line, leading the squad with 30 assists. Asiah Dingle is averaging 14.9 points, 5.4 rebounds, 3.0 steals, and 2.9 assists, while Kaitlyn Downey leads with 6.8 boards to go with 9.6 points, Kendell Heremaia chips in 13.6 points and 6.1 boards, and Megan Jonassen hauls in 6.1 boards, as well. With Heremaia shooting 39.8% from the floor, five others averaging 10 or more minutes are shooting 42.0% or better.
 
This Is Our House
Since Coach Gaitley took over before the 2011-12 season, the Rams hold a 127-34 (78.9%) record at home across 161 contests. Over the last four-plus seasons, the Rams are 71-13 in the Rose Hill Gym, including a 34-6 mark in conference play and three straight Holiday Classic crowns. Sunday's loss to La Salle snapped a 12-game win streak.
 
60 is the Magic Number?
Fordham is 77-12 over its last five seasons when scoring 60 points or more, including an 8-3 mark last year and 9-1 record to begin this season. The offense has been clicking so far for the Rams, with six of their nine wins coming with 70 or more points.
 
Class of 2026
Head coach Stephanie Gaitley has announced her 2021 recruiting class made up of four future Rams – Kaila Berry, Rose Nelson, Ashley O'Connor, and Faith Pappas. Read all about the incoming class here.
 
Preseason Poll
Fordham was predicted to finish third in the annual Atlantic 10 preseason coaches poll, totaling 163 points among the 14 head coaches, just behind Dayton (193) and Rhode Island (174). The Rams return four of their five starters and 91% of their scoring from a year ago, while adding senior transfer Asiah Dingle and Australian U19 international Millie Prior. Anna DeWolfe, the reigning Co-Player of the Year, was selected to the preseason All-Conference First Team, while Kendell Heremaia was named to the Second Team.
 
Up Next
The Rams play at VCU on Saturday at 1 p.m. on ESPN+ and WFUV.