Princeton Fencers Win ECACs

To use the words of coach Ben Zivkovic, "A lot of bouts given away and a lot of bouts taken away [by the officials]" kept the Harvard men's fencing team back in 11th place among the 13 teams that competed Saturday and Sunday in the ECAC fencing tournament at the IAB.

Princeton, the overall winner, finished with 79 bout victories, and Penn placed second with 77. Harvard collected but 48 bouts as all too often Crimson fencers who seemed on the verge of sealing a victory would fall on the short side of a 5-4 score.

Only captain Gene Vastola survived the preliminary rounds (which determined the team champions), and even he made it to the finals by only the barest of margins (see column at left). Once in the finals, Vastola, who had a shot at third until his last bout, placed sixth.

The Crimson's other brightest hopes, sabreman Mike Bierer and epeeman Rob Kaplan, fell one to three bouts shy of qualifying for the finals.

Kaplan fenced schizophrenically in his Saturday morning bouts, handing the eventual champion, Chris Hanson, one of his only two losses, 5-2, but losing repeatedly in close bouts to less talented fencers. With a 5-7 final record, Kaplan dropped four bouts 5-4, and three, 5-3. The other two epee fencers, Russ Kaphan and Steve Biddle, won five and six bouts respectively.

After losing two of his first three bouts, Bierer ran off a mini-streak of four straight victories. But the score in three of those matches was 5-4, and Bierer did not show his best, most aggressive form.

He could not halt a string of four straight defeats, including two losses to Penn's Paul Frieberg, who won the event, and Cornell's Jeff Estabrook, who tied for second in the preliminaries.

Fenced

Bierer's sabre teammates, Rob Homer and Richard Gillette, also finished 6-6, and all three of them appeared to be victimized by directing, which Zivkovic said hadn't hurt them but rather had "killed them." Gillette, while having perhaps the best fencing day of his career, lost four dubious 5-4 decisions and had little to show for his performance.

The Princeton Tigers managed to wrest the crown from 1978 champion Penn on the strength of their depth and consistency. Each one of their nine fencers captured at least eight of his 12 bouts.

Penn could have tied the Tigers by taking all six bouts in the last two sabre rounds against Harvard and Princeton.