Fencing Sweeps To Victory in Conference Meet

The Harvard men’s and women’s fencing teams made the most of their intersession by dominating at the Northeast Fencing Conference championship, hosted last weekend by Boston College.

Harvard Women

The women’s fencing squad (9-2, 1-1 Ivy), which came into the tournament on the heels of a tough loss to Columbia, had little trouble against Tufts, Dartmouth and Brown.

But in the final match of the weekend, the Crimson’s epee and sabre teams lost their matches by a combined score of 11-7 to the Eagle fencers.

Fortunately for the Crimson, though, the foil team responded as it did all weekend, winning its event 8-1 to carry Harvard to a 15-12 overall victory.

“It was an exciting match that came down to the last two foil bouts and really could have gone either way,” said Crimson captain Ellen Schulz, who played a large role in the comeback, winning all three of her bouts against BC.

By defeating the Eagles, the Crimson completed the day’s sweep of Boston area colleges. Earlier that day they handed the Tuft’s club team a 24-3 defeat.

In the two Ivy league matches of the day , the Crimson skewered Dartmouth’s club team, but only managed to squeak by a more experienced Brown varsity squad (6-5, 0-1).

In the match against the Bears, the epee team once again fell behind early and lost the event, 6-3.

But behind the strong play of sophmore saber Eunice Yi, who won all three of her bouts, the sabre team came away with a 6-3 win to pull Harvard even in the overall match.

Once again the foil team stepped up, putting up a 7-2 score that put away the Bears 16-11.

Next week Havard is set to face off against a tough Cornell squad and fencing powerhouse Penn State.

“Penn State is a team that recruits internatonally, so this will give us an opportunity to go up against some great talent, and hopefully surprise them,” Schulz said.

Harvard Men

The men’s fencing squad (7-2, 1-1 Ivy) rode a similar wave of sucess this past weekend.

The Crimson men dispatched the Tufts and Dartmouth club teams by a combined score of 42-12.

In Harvard’s match against Boston College (6-7), the Crimson once again swapped victories in sabre and epee. Coming into the foil portion of the competition tied at nine, Harvard quickly fell behind 3-1. Co-captain Ben Schmidt’s three-bout sweep helped the Crimson charge back to win the event 5-4 and defeat BC 14-13.

Against Brown the Crimson again fell behind early, this time due to a 7-2 loss at the hands of the Bears’ epee team. The Harvard foil and sabre team carried the team with 9-0 and 5-4 victories, respectively.

Like the women, the men will also play Penn State this coming weekend.

“We are not going into the Penn State match prepared to lose,” freshman saberist Noah Fabricant said. “We hope to do well, and learn a lot from matching up against a great team with a lot of experienced fencers.”