Men's, women's fencing victorious at H-Y-P meet

What's the magic number? For Princeton fencing it seemed to be 16-11 as the Tigers foiled Harvard nearly perfect season. At this weekend's Harvard-Yale-Princeton match up, both the men's (6-4 overall, 2-2 Ivy League) and women's (12-3, 4-1) teams posted a pair of 16-11 wins against both Harvard and Yale.

Although the victories do nothing to bolster the spirits of those fencers hopeful of an Ivy League championship, the momentum will no doubt help Tigers as they head into next weekend's IFA championships and look forward to NCAA regional qualifiers.

"We were ahead of Yale the whole way," senior captain Mindy Rostal said.

The Bulldogs (6-4, 1-3), the host of Saturday's meet, could not even get their referee staff together let alone their fencers. With a significant shortage of fencing refs, Princeton was forced to fight under a new and awkward schedule. While fencing matches traditionally follow a pattern of three sabre bouts, three foil bouts and three epee bouts over three rounds, the staff shortage forced all weapons to essentially fight successive matches with little or no turn around time. This change takes away needed rest time as well as prevents teammates from having any down time to cheer on their compatriots.

"It really messes you up," Rostal said of the altered schedule. "Thus it was a lot closer than it should be with the first and second rounds being very close."

Overcoming obstacles

Despite the obstacles, the Tigers were able to really turn up their performance in the last round to defeat the Bulldogs by a score of 16-11. Freshman Jacqueline Leahy would leave H-Y-P still undefeated on the year. This was no doubt a great gift for Jacqueline as Saturday was her birthday. Ranked No. 6 in the world, Saturday's flawless tournament was some consolation for a young woman who had to spend her 18th birthday in New Haven, Connecticut.

Against Harvard the women also won, but they had a bit of an uphill battle. Defeating the Crimson, who ended their season 15-3 (2-3), was by no means a given as the Tigers hit the midway point in their bouts. The sabre squad lost its first three bouts, followed by a disappointing loss by the team's captain, Rostal. Sophomore Inhwa Song turned the tournament around with a resounding win over Harvard's standout in foil, Liz Blase.

"That win really rallied our team," Rostal said.

With Song's momentum the epee squad went on to win all of their bouts helping the Tigers to defeat the Crimson, you guessed it, 16-11.

With Columbia's defeat of Penn, the women's hope of a share of an Ivy League title is dashed for this year. That being said, the Tigers postseason looks bright as the women head to Boston College to compete in the IFA championships next weekend.

Better results

"This time, thankfully, we have much better news than we did after the Columbia and Penn matches," junior captain Soren Thompson said of this weekend's events.

After what was less than a stellar season, the men soundly defeated both Harvard and Yale, 16-11.

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The Princeton sabre squad, which had been having an off year thus far, turned over a new leaf against Yale (3-5, 0-4) and Harvard (14-2, 2-2). The squad won all of its final three bouts to put the men into great shape against the Elis and took key matches from a very strong Crimson squad. Foil rebounded from tough losses against an excellent Yale team to lead the way against Harvard. The epee squad won 12 of 18 matches.

"After such a disappointing start to the season, it was great to end it on a high note," Thompson said. "Both victories were as good as I could have hoped for and really proved the strength of this team. Everybody seemed to come through at a clutch time with big wins."