Two gold medals top weekend haul

Princeton’s growth was evident this past weekend as both teams competed in the Intercollegiate Fencing Association (IFA) Championship tournament hosted by Columbia. Several individual Tigers took home honors, while the six-weapon team combined its scores for a fourth-place finish behind Columbia, Penn and Harvard.

While the fourth-place finish was identical to last year’s result in the cumulative event, head coach Zoltan Dudas was very positive about the progress his squads have made this year.

“I was very pleased with finishing fourth in the six-weapon tournament this year,” Dudas said. “There is a relatively big gap between the top three schools and everyone else. I’m trying to close that gap, and the first good sign is that we’ve already had some excellent individual results.”

Dudas has done significant work in finding and attracting talent to Princeton.

“Recruiting has been very important,” Dudas said. “Last year’s recruits clearly performed very well, since [the] whole men’s IFA epee squad was made up of freshmen.”

In addition to the overall fourth-place finish, several Tigers performed well enough to take home medals. Freshman standout epeeist Graham Wicas dominated once again, as his strong fencing won him a gold medal in his event. Wicas defeated Harvard’s Teddy Sherrill — the defending champion — by one touch, 7-6. The bout was close all the way through, with Wicas needing overtime to clinch the victory.

Dudas was very impressed with his fencer’s ability to stay calm during the big moments and to dispel the intimidation that came from facing the reigning title-holder.

“Graham was very sharp and focused all the way through the direct elimination bouts,” Dudas said. “He wasn’t scared to act, and his great movement paid off. It was great for him to beat the defending champion because that always makes the win sweeter.”

Another Tiger to take home gold was junior epeeist Jasjit Bhinder. Bhinder also won her final bout by one point in overtime, taking down Quaker Kathryn Anthony.

“This bout was a much slower, tactical bout. Jasjit had to move a lot and have great action and execution,” Dudas said. “It was critical that she was brave enough to take action and go for the touch. She has worked very hard, and it has been paying off.”

Besides the gold medals, two other fencers took home medals. Sophomore foilist Karen Petsche won a silver medal, falling in the title bout to Harvard’s Misha Goldfeder.

“Karen did a wonderful job to get to the final bout,” Dudas said. “In many of her bouts she got behind, but she always refocused and regrouped. She is very mentally and physically strong, and that work paid off during a very long day.”

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Freshman epeeist Michael Elfassy beat Yale’s Michael Pearce in the third-place match to take home the bronze.

“I’m very happy with Mike’s bronze medal,” Dudas said. “He was injured earlier in the season but came back and did very well in the Junior Olympics. Mike was actually seeded 16th and had to face the No. 1-seeded fencer in his first direct elimination bout. He beat him and kept advancing, finally losing to last year’s champion. But he was able to beat last year’s runner-up in the bronze-medal bout.”

Though he is proud of the individual results, Dudas is most proud of the men’s epee team’s collective effort, which was good enough to win the gold medal for the squad as a whole.

“To have a squad with all freshmen [Wicas, Elfassy and Nate Sulat] win the men’s epee title is amazing,” Dudas said. “To me, this is the best because it shows what a strong weapon we have. As a group we are very strong, and we will just get stronger.”

The Tigers will have another opportunity to show their strength next weekend when they compete in the NCAA Mid Atlantic/South Regional.