The men’s and women’s fencing team had only one chance to compete at home this season, and the Bears made it count with impressive victories and a combined 9-1 record in a Northeast Fencing Conference meet Saturday. The women’s team went four for five on the day, besting the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dartmouth, Vassar College and Tufts University. Meanwhile, the men’s team toppled Brandeis College, Dartmouth, Vassar and Tufts but were foiled in a 19-8 loss to MIT.
“It’s really great to fence at home, just because everyone comes out to support us,” said Nathan Sinai ’21, who posted a 12-3 record in men’s epee.
Sofija Podvisocka ’21 and Signe Golash ’21 both posted undefeated 12-0 records with Podvisocka competing in women’s epee and Golash in women’s sabre. Captain Umar Masood ’19 also notched an undefeated 15-0 mark on the day in men’s foil.
“We’ve progressively gotten better throughout the whole season. I think we are really coming together as a team under our new head coach, Alex Ripa,” Masood said. “We dropped a close one to MIT, but I think we’re fencing great and morale is high.”
Other notable individual efforts included a 14-1 record in men’s epee by Timmy Frank ’22 and a 10-2 mark by Elena Jin ’21 in women’s foil.
This weekend’s performance featured numerous dominant victories by the fencing team at the squad level. On the men’s side, epee twice put up an 8-1 mark to lift Bruno to a tight 14-13 victory over Brandeis and a 20-7 win against Tufts. Additionally, men’s foil went 8-1 against Dartmouth in a 19-8 win.
“We’ve had a pretty strong season,” Sinai said. “We have a really young team this year, and had a lot of people graduate last year. So, it’s been nice to get (the younger fencers) into the spirit of college fencing.”
Women’s foil was especially commanding in victories against MIT and Dartmouth. The Bears posted records of 9-0 and 9-0, respectively. Women’s epee also earned impressive marks with an undefeated 9-0 record against Dartmouth and an 8-1 victory to top Tufts. In total, the women’s team soundly defeated many of their opponents Saturday, as the squads led the way to a 24-3 defeat of Dartmouth, a 22-5 win against Tufts and a 21-6 victory over MIT.
“The season has been going pretty well for the women’s team,” said captain Ebba Brunnstrom ’19. A “big goal for today was that we did not want to lose against any schools.” For the season, Brunnstrom hopes the women’s team will continue to grow.
This weekend’s NFC meet demonstrated the best performance by the fencing team since their first NFC meet Nov. 17, when the women’s team earned a 6-1 record while the men’s team notched a 3-2 mark. The Bears will return to the piste in the Eric Sollee Invitational at Cambridge, Massachusetts Feb. 3.
A previous version of this article stated that women's foil bested Brandeis College 8-1, when in fact women's foil lost to Brandeis 1-8. In addition, a previous version of this article stated that Elena Jin '21 posted a 13-2 mark in women's foil, when in fact her mark was 10-2. The Herald regrets the error.
