St. Louis, Mo. – On Wednesday it seemed that Fordham sophomore Victoria Klimaszewski ate her Wheaties before the game as she led the Rams to a win on opening day at the 2026 Betterment Atlantic 10 Championship. Tomorrow the entire Fordham softball team can have a bowl of the "Breakfast of Champions" as the Rams defeated Loyola University Chicago, 7-4, to claim their tenth Atlantic 10 softball title.
 
With the win, Fordham improves to 27-26 on the season and will await their NCAA Championship regional assignment on Sunday night.
 
Klimaszewski, who was named the championship's Most Outstanding Player, had a hand in today's win, going 2-for-3 with a home run and two RBI while freshman Sadira Forcucci also connected on a home run and drove in a pair. Sophomore pitcher Elizabeth Gaisior came on in the bottom of the seventh and recorded the final three outs, the last on a pop up with the bases loaded.
 
How It Happened

• The Rams took a 1-0 lead in the third when Neleh Nogay and Mikayla Sawn reached on errors and Nicki Sudall delivered Nogay with a double.
• The Ramblers tied the game in the bottom of the frame and took a 2-1 lead with one in the fourth.
• Fordham took a 4-2 lead with a three-run fourth.
• Morgan Volgraf and Klimaszewski led off with back-to-back singles and Nogay loaded the bases when she laid down a sacrifice but Loyola couldn't get an out.
• One out later Sudall reached on a fielder's choice with Volgraf and Klimaszewski scoring on the play due to an error.
• Forcucci then plated Nogay with a sacrifice fly to give the Rams a 4-2 lead.
• The lead didn't last long as the Ramblers responded with a pair of runs in the bottom of the inning to knot the game at four.
• Fordham took the lead for good with two in the fifth on a Klimaszewski two-run home run and added another run in the seventh on a Forcucci solo home run.

Notes

• 2026 Championship Most Outstanding Player: Victoria Klimaszewski
• 2026 All-Championship selections: Holly Beeman, Kate McGuire, and Neleh Nogay.
• Freshman Sydney May picked up the win in the circle for the Rams, throwing 3.2 innings with two strike outs.
• It was her third win of the year.
• Gaisior earned her first save of the season.
• Nogay has 251 career hits tying her with Allison Twarowski for third all-time.
• Nogay leads the Atlantic 10 this year with 69 hits and is tops in the conference with a .390 batting average and with 51 runs scored.
• Nogay's .373 career batting average would be a school record (current record is her .367 career average entering this year).
• Nogay has hit safely in ten of the last eleven games and has scored at least one run in ten of the past eleven.
• Over the last six games, Nogay has scored nine times.
• Nogay is second in the A-10 and seventh in the nation with 34 stolen bases on the year, while she ranks sixth nationally with 0.69 stolen bases per game.
• Nogay holds the Fordham record for career stolen bases with 117 after breaking the previous mark of 85 earlier this season. She became just the sixth active player in all of Division I softball with 100 career steals, reaching triple digits against Army on Mar. 25.
• Klimaszewski has hit safely in seven of her last eight games and finished the Atlantic 10 Championship 5-for-10 with two home runs and eight RBI in the four games.
• The Ram offense leads the league with 424 hits as a team, with seven different Rams posting 30 or more hits individually, and they lead the league with a .289 team batting average.
• Fordham is now 49-31 all-time in Atlantic 10 Championship games, 3-0 against Loyola Chicago.
• The Rams did not record a walk today after walking 26 times over the first three A-10 Championship games.
• Fordham scored 31 runs in the four championship games.

What's Next

• The Rams will tune in to the NCAA Division I Softball section show at 7:00 p.m. tomorrow to learn of their regional assignment.
• NCAA regionals will begin on Friday, May 15.
• It will be Fordham's eleventh appearance at the NCAA Championship, the first since 2022.