Santa Clara, Calif. – American author and newspaper editor Horace Greeley is famously known for the phrase, "Go West Young Man." He saw the fertile farmland of the west as an ideal place for people willing to work hard for the opportunity to succeed. The Fordham men's soccer squad worked hard on their road trip out west but came away with a tie at Gonzaga and a 2-0 loss tonight to Santa Clara.
With the loss, Fordham falls to 0-1-1 on the young season while Santa Clara improves to 2-0-0.
The Broncos broke the scoreless tie with a penalty kick in the 75
th minute as a video review led to a Fordham foul in the box.
Four minutes later, Santa Clara made it a 2-0 game when Josmar Guandique dribbled to the right and got off a shot to the bottom right of the goal.
Fordham had two early opportunities to get on the board, the first coming in the first minute when
Kamran Mojabi got off a blast from 30 yards that was punched out by the Santa Clara keeper.
A minute later, Mojabi sent a pass into the box which was directed to an open
Elias Betancourt who managed to get a foot on it from about ten yards but sent it right into the keeper's midsection.
Late in the first half the Broncos had a prime scoring chance as they got a shot off from just inside the 18-yard box that rattled off the cross bar and right to a Santa Clara player who got off a shot that was kept out of the net by a diving
Shayon Kashi.
In the 56
th minute the Rams had another chance as
Marco Cantalapiedra played a long cross into the box to
Gavin Flickinger who got a blast off from 15 yards that clanked off the crossbar.
Notes
•
Shayon Kashi, who made three saves, made his first start in goal for the Rams while freshman
Gavin Flickinger and
Marco Cantalapiedra made their first collegiate starts.
• Freshman
Marc-Alexandre Happi Emaga made his collegiate debut.
• The game at Santa Clara was a homecoming for three Fordham Rams who hail from the Bay Area: Senior captain
Kamran Mojabi is from San Francisco where he played at Sacred Heart Cathedral Prep, sophomore
Nicholas Di Sessa is a native of Walnut Creek while grad student, and grad student
Jason Hsu is from San Rafael where he played at Terra Linda High School before moving on to UC Davis where he played for four years.
• The game at Santa Clara marked the furthest west a Fordham men's soccer squad has played (previous western-most match was at Gonzaga on Thursday).
• This was the second meeting between Fordham and Santa Clara on the pitch.
• The Rams won the first matchup, 4-0, at Moglia Stadium in 2024.
• It was Fordham's third match against a team from the West Coast Conference.
• The game as the second of five straight road matches for the Rams to open the season.
• Fordham will play four of the first five matches on natural grass with the lone artificial surface coming at Villanova.
What's Next?
• The Rams travel to Lewisburg, Pa., to face the Bucknell University Bison on Friday, August 28, at 7:00 p.m. on Friday, August 28, at 7:00 p.m. on Emmitt Field at Holmes Stadium.
• It will be the sixth meeting between the Rams and the Bison, the first since 1994 when both schools were members of the Patriot League.
• Bucknell leads the all-time series, 3-2, and have taken the past two meetings, including a 2-1 overtime win in Lewisburg, in 1994.
