Last Saturday at 8:00 a.m., most of the Tufts campus was still fast asleep. But for the men's and women's fencing teams, it was the start of a long day of competition.
Teams from throughout New England, including the likes of University of New Hampshire (UNH), Dartmouth, Boston College (BC) and Boston University (BU), arrived for the Tufts Invitational at the Gantcher Center. Eight hours later, the women had finished 3-2, while the men ended even at the end of the day at 2-2.
"We had a pretty good weekend," coach Jason Sachs said. "We beat all the teams we were supposed to beat and lost to the stronger teams."
The women took wins from BU, Dartmouth and UNH, and dropped matchups with Boston College and Wellesley. The Jumbos had beaten Wellesley two weeks ago.
"I think the loss to Wellesley is not really an indication of let down from two weeks before when we beat them but more indicative of how this young team lives on the margin," Sachs said of the 15-12 defeat at the hands of the Wellesley Blue.
The foil and saber squads each won 6-3 against Wellesley, but epee fell 0-9 to one of the strongest epee teams in all of New England.
The foil squad once again had a strong outing, defeating every team they faced. Junior Julia Shih won all her bouts, going 15-0, while freshman Jamie Kraut went 12-3, and freshman Emily Cooperman had an equally strong showing.
Despite her own success, Shih was quick to praise sophomore sabrist Louisa May Zouein, who went 14-1 on the day.
"In addition to her incredible talent on the fencing strip, Louisa has been vital to developing our sabre team," Shih said. "She pushes herself hard and spends a lot of time teaching and pushing our new sabre fencers and her influence is obvious in how much they have grown in such a short span of time."
While both the Blue and the Hawks handed the epee squad tough losses, the Jumbos did find success, winning their first match of the season against the Terriers.
In the end, it was a good day for the women, who especially enjoyed competing on their home turf. Although there were only a handful of spectators, what they lacked in numbers, they compensated for with enthusiasm.
"The team had great energy today, and everyone was very helpful and supportive," Kraut said. "It was a nice change having people in the background cheering for our team. It gave us confidence and optimism."
The men's club team also made a strong showing on the day, defeating UNH and BU, losing to BC, and just barely edged out by Dartmouth 13-14. Sachs was very pleased with their performance.
"Their season has been very impressive given that they have to do most of the work on their own," he said. Individually, Sachs praised freshman fencer Danial Tovrov's performance.
"Dan Tovrov had a great day of fencing, he lost only two bouts on the day, beating some very strong fencers," he said.
Tovrov went 7-3 on the day, and was proud of his team's resilience in defeating BC following their loss to a tough Hawks squad.
"BC came out strong. They were gunning for us, because we beat them last time," he said. "But it helped us to trounce BU. In the end, I feel that we had a good day."
While the men's team is fairly young and has a lot of freshmen on the roster, they have improved significantly over the season, and have a strong chance of finishing as one of the top club teams in the region.
"We managed to put together a top notch club team that really shook up the other colleges who were expecting us to be pushovers," freshman Ethan Mandelup said.
Next Saturday both teams will take part in the New England Conference Championships, with a chance to finish this season on top. Overall the women are 5-5 in their conference and the men ended the year at 5-4.
"Our recent successes and vast improvement as a team give us great hope for a strong finish to the season," Kraut said.
Sachs echoed the sentiments.
"I am hoping that we will take home some hardware next week."
