Fordham’s Bacharach Talks Ram Water Polo, MAWPC Hopes @ Navy
This weekend Fordham men’s water polo intends to break decades of futility when they travel to Navy’s Lejeune Hall for the 2021 Mid-Atlantic Water Polo Conference (MAWPC) Championship. If the Rams, the tournament’s top seed, can sweep through three days of competition they will capture the MAWPC title—and with it the program’s first-ever NCAA berth.
Fordham opens play on Friday at 3 p.m. against eight-seeded Mount St. Mary’s.
All matches for the 2021 MAWPC Championship will be streamed by the CWPA; the link is here.
If the Rams qualify for the men’s national championship, it will be a first in the long and storied history of Fordham polo—one that includes Dr. Francis X. Judge, a legendary New York City polo player who in 1949 revived the sport at the Catholic institution in the Bronx, his son Chris, like his father a member of the Fordham Hall of Fame, and Jake Miller-Tolt, who graduated last year as the Rams’ all-time leader in goals scored (351).
It may seem inconceivable that a program which has been a fixture in Northeast polo—Fordham was a founding member of the Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference (ECAC) polo conference that grew into the Collegiate Water Polo Association (CWPA), which now oversees men’s and women’s varsity and club play throughout the East and the Midwest—has never qualified for NCAAs in the 52-year history of the men’s national championship.
It has been a fortuitous mix of youth and experience that has led Ram polo (23-6; 11-1 MAWPC) to the most successful season in program history. Seniors Dmitris Koukais and Bailey O’Malley along with graduate student Hans Zdolsek provide the experience. Freshmen Jacopo Parrella, George Papanikolaou and Lucas Jansy provide a youthful counterbalance that has propelled the team to it’s first-ever MAWPC regular season title—and hope to get the Rams into their first national championship tournament.
[Special Delivery from Italy: Jacopo Parrella Leads Fordham Men’s Water Polo into the Postseason]
Fordham Head Coach Brian Bacharach, who in 2020 assumed leadership for the program as long-time Ram leader Bill Harris stepped back in his responsibility, spoke last Friday after Senior Night at Col. Francis B. Messmore Aquatic Center about his young squad and what it will take for them to continue a tremendous revival of Fordham polo.
- You’ve got a young team but they’re not inexperienced. They’re kids who have played all over the world. They may not yet know what it takes to win at the MAWPC tournament—but they know what it takes to win anywhere else.
They do have experience playing in other places and do have success where they’ve come from. But that’s no different than a kid from California playing in JOs and playing in CIF. Everyone we’re playing against has kids who have experience at high levels.
Senior goalie Bailey O’Mara is key to Rams’ hopes this weekend. Photo: Fordham Athletics
You don’t get here very often without having high-level experience.
We are definitely an inexperienced team. In our rotation I think we have seven first-year guys. There may be sophomores [in that group] but they’re newcomers. They’re still shocked by certain things, they’re experiencing certain things and it’s also just hard. They come from wherever they’re from and maybe English isn’t their first language.
They’re in class, they’ve got social aspects, they’ve got water polo… it’s just a lot in that first semester.
I do believe this group’s best days are ahead of them. I just hope it’s in a week and not in one or two years.
- You’ve got three very experienced guys—Koukais, O’Mara and Zdolsek—at the right positions going into the biggest weekend of your season.
It's funny. We've got these super experienced seniors and a whole group of newcomers in our rotation. It’s very much a dichotomy in terms of our experience level. We’re going to rely on those guys to help us down the stretch. The senior group has been very important to our success up to this point. When things have veered those guys have been the ones to help right our ship—whether it’s talking or making a big play or whatever.
Passionate Fordham fans at Senior Night in the Bronx. Photo: M. Randazzo
We wouldn’t be where we are in the rankings or where we are in terms of our league without those seniors.
- You had a really great crowd here tonight. Seems like many folks are joining the Fordham Ram bandwagon—which must give you some gratification.
It does—thought actually that was our smallest crowd tonight. When we played GW this place was packed. It was homecoming, one of our former players was inducted into the Hall of Fame. It was truly an electric environment.
Bucknell, same thing. When Jacopo hit the game-winner this place was deafening loud. It was great.
Same thing for our home game with Navy. We’ve had very good crowds, the support of the alumni, the student body and of course the parents has really helped us.