Men, women compete in dual meets

While brandishing weapons six days a week isn't the typical college student's experience, for the select few on the men's and women's fencing team, it's how they spend the majority of their afternoons and the reason they excitedly look forward to December.

This past weekend these Tigers kicked off December with a bang, traveling to NYU to take on four teams in their second dual-team meet of the season.

The men started off the round robin by fencing the host team. In the closest contest of the day, the men ended up falling to NYU, 14-13. The men's epee squad had the best showing, as the epeeists were able to take seven of nine bouts from the Violets. The foil squad was also able to defeat NYU, though by the much slimmer margin of 5-4. Unfortunately, the sabre squad wasn't able to keep up the momentum and fell by a score of 8-1.

In their second matchup of the day, the men's team faced perennial powerhouse Penn State. In the past 13 years, Penn State has captured nine NCAA championship titles and has dominated the fencing world. This intimidating statistic did not slow the Tigers down, however, as every squad fenced with intensity. At foil, Princeton was able to take four bouts from the Nittany Lions in its 5-4 loss. While a loss may seem disappointing, the outcome was much improved over last year's 8-1 loss and gives much hope for the rest of the season. Both the men's epee and sabre squads fell to Penn State by scores of 7-2.

The men's next opponent, Rutgers, capitalized on a lack of focus on the part of the Tigers and dominated each squad. The team lost 5-4 at foil, 6-3 at sabre and 7-2 at epee.

Regaining its intensity, Princeton bounced back and fenced the best it had all day against its final opponent, the University of North Carolina. The epee squad had the most impressive performance with an 8-1 bout record, while the foil squad finished 7-2 and the sabre squad captured its first squad victory, with a 5-4 final.

Head coach Zoltan Dudas credited the Tigers' early struggles to inexperience.

"This year half the starting teams are filled with freshmen who obviously hadn't fenced last year, so the first meet is always stressful, especially due to the different format from high school and the exceedingly high level of competition," Dudas said. "Initially, they couldn't pick up the rhythm of the tournament, especially in sabre, but they continued to fence better and better and were able to finish the day on a very strong note by beating UNC. This improvement makes me feel good about our ability to improve over the course of this season."

Women win twice

While the men's team finished the day with a 1-3 match record, the women were able to best that and finish the day at 2-2. Against NYU, the Tigers absolutely dominated with foil winning 8-1, epee, 5-4 and sabre, 7-2. Numerous fencers went undefeated, including multiple freshmen. The women continued their winning streak with another solid performance against Rutgers, besting the Scarlet Knights by a total score of 20-7.

In their next match, the Tigers took on the dominant Penn State squad and fell by a margin of 22-5. The foil team, however, managed to steal three bouts from the national championship contending Nittany Lions and show its strength as a young and feisty squad. In the final round of the day, Princeton fenced the University of North Carolina, losing the intensely fought match by a score of 14-13. Foil and epee were both able to manage winning records of 6-3, but the sabre team struggled greatly and came away with an 8-1 loss.

The most remarkable performance of the day came from senior foil Sara Jew-Lim, who lost only one bout. As team captain, Jew-Lim led the foil squad to the highest winning percentage of any squad on the team.

Overall, Dudas was pleased with both the men's and women's teams.

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"In this first tournament I tried to give lots of chances to the freshmen, and after a couple bouts they warmed up and had a very good day overall," he said. "Most of the freshman had a positive winning percentage, which means we will have great depth of talent. Saturday was a very good sign for our future."

The Tigers' next competition will be on Feb. 11 at the University of Pennsylvania in Princeton's first Ivy League meet of the season.