Bronx, N.Y. - The 2026 Fordham water polo squad, ranked tied for fourth in the nation, continues its 2026 season this weekend by traveling to California to face nationally-ranked competition. The Rams open play on Saturday, September 26, with a match against #1 UCLA at 8:00 p.m. (EST) and then battle #6 Long Beach State on Sunday, September 28 at 3:00 p.m. (EST) before closing out the trip against #15 Cal Baptist on Monday, September 29 at 2:00 p.m. (EST).
 
The Rams are 9-0 on the season and is coming off conference wins against Bucknell, Mount St. Mary's, and Mercyhurst last weekend at the Bucknell Invitational.

SERIES HISTORIES

• Fordham and UCLA have met three times in the past with the Bruins winning all three meetings.
• All three matches with UCLA were at a neutral site, the most recent a 16-9 Bruin win at Princeton last fall.
• It will be the third meeting between the Rams and the Long Beach State with Fordham winning two of the three matches, including a 16-15 overtime/sudden victory match last year at Long Beach State.
• This will be the 16th all-time meeting between Fordham and Cal Baptist with the Lancers holding an 11-4 series lead, but the Rams have taken three of the past four meetings, including a 23-12 win at Harvard in 2024.

NEWS & NOTES

• The Rams are led by head coach Brian Bacharach, who has built the Rams into a national championship contender, collecting a 163-36 record since 2019, winning five MAWPC Championships, and making the national championship semifinals the last two years.
• Fordham water polo swept the MAWPC weekly awards on September 22: sophomore Alessandro Salipante was named Player of the Week, freshman Petar Kulas was named Defensive Player of the Week, and Karlo Dragosevic was named Rookie of the Week. It is the first weekly award for each.
• Fordham returns its All-American duo of Andras Toth and Luca Provenziani for 2026.The junior duo has made an impact from day one at Rose Hill, as both have earned First Team All-American honors and set multiple single season records already.  Toth scored a school record 134 goals in 2025 and was First Team All-American and the MAWPC Most Valuable Player, while Provenziani set the single season mark for assists with 103 in 2025 and was a Second Team All-American after earning First Team honors as a freshman.
• The Rams have set a new bar becoming a "United Nations" team as the team has representatives from 10 countries – Hungary, Serbia, Malta, Germany, South Africa, Italy, Croatia, Ukraine, Canada, and the United States.
• Fordham had six players represent their country at the 2026 U20 European Championship in mid-August with Karlo Dragosevic capturing gold with Croatia and Diego Tresa and Alessandro Salipante taking bronze with Italy.  Viktor Savic and Vuk Kojic (Serbia) and Andras Toth (Hungary) were the other three Rams competing.
• In addition to a wealth of new, young talent, the Rams also added graduate transfer Laszlo Strasser from Wagner College, where he was a First Team All-MAWPC performer and ACWPC Honorable Mention All-American.
• The 2026 Eric Weber award recipient is sophomore Mark Dyck.

WHO'S NEXT

• After this weekend, the Rams host four matches on the weekend of October 9-11.
• Fordham will take on Wagner in an MAWPC match on Friday, October 9 at 6:00 p.m. an then host Princeton and Navy on Saturday, October 10, at 10:30 p.m. and 3:00 p.m., respectively.
• The Rams then close out the weekend with a conference match against George Washington on Sunday, October 11, at 10:00 a.m.