Women's, men's fencing finish third, fifth at IFA tournament

After a rough season of surprising losses and finishing somewhat behind their expectations, both the men's and women's fencing teams came back to defend themselves.

Shaking off the bruises of the Ivy season, the Tigers placed fifth in the men's bracket and third in the women's among the fourteen colleges and universities who competed this past weekend at Vassar College at the Intercollegiate Fencing Association Championship.

The overall format of the meet consisted of a two-day, back-to-back tournament. On Saturday, each school entered their top three male and female fencers. The competition lasted all day, with each fencer competing in several matches.

The second day of the competition consisted of the top 12 fencers from the previous day competing in the final rounds for individual placement.

The men's team finished fifth, bouncing back from a season full of injuries. Captain Matt Fitzgerald suffered a broken toe; junior Eddie Chou, a sprained ankle; and Brandon Lafving, a twisted knee. Despite Chou's injury, the junior had one of two outstanding performances during the meet. Sophomore Soren Thompson had a great performance at the championships as well.

Chou finished third in sabre overall, and was competitive in each of his four bouts, earning the bronze.

Thompson finished third in epee, also competing in a total of four bouts. He kept his bouts close, ultimately settling for the bronze medal in his event.

Unfortunately, the men's foil squad was not able to place in the top 12 for the second day of the tournament, but still managed to finish fifth overall. Princeton placed fourth in sabre and had a strong showing in epee, finishing second.

The men expected to beat most of the Ivy teams, but were unable to defeat Penn and Yale.

"[Our losses to] UPenn and Yale were flukes...I have no doubt that we could beat both of those teams if we were to fence them again," said Chou.

The women also had an extremely strong showing at the meet in Poughkeepsie, NY. The epee squad demonstrated its strength, finishing in first place overall. The team was led by seniors Maya Lawrence and Lindsay Campbell.

Lawrence finished second in epee, winning six of her seven bouts and losing only to the champion epee fencer of the tournament, Emese Takees of St. John's University. Campbell won five of her bouts, taking third place overall.

Get the best of the ‘Prince’ delivered straight to your inbox. Subscribe now »

The foil squad also performed well, placing fifth overall and missing the bronze medal by just one bout. Freshman Inhwa Song placed eleventh individually, and finished second in her strip on the first day of the tournament.

The sabre squad finished in 11th place. Though young, the squad was able to apply its lessons from this past season in the pressure of the tournament, displaying a gained maturity.

Overall, the women were able to finish in third, putting them behind Ivy League rival Penn. The Tigers actually beat the Quakers in their head-to-head match in the tournament, but Penn finished with a better overall record in the championship.

For the Tigers, the revenge was sweet. Despite the loss of the Ivy League title — which Princeton has held for the past few years — the team was able to walk away knowing they had beaten all of the Ivy teams at least once during the season, including Yale who was the 2002 Ivy League Champion.

"I think we really pulled it together as a team," Song said. "We wanted to prove to everybody that we haven't gone down — and we did just that by beating all of the Ivy schools. It was a really good day."