Just a week removed from strong showings at the Penn State Open, the teams again posted positive results in Cambridge, Mass., this past Sunday, with the men going 5-1 and the women finishing 4-2.
“Overall, the team did a very nice job,” head coach Zoltan Dudas said. “The numerical results were good. We can still improve, but this was a good tournament.”
Both sides defeated Sacred Heart, Vassar, NYU and UNC at the seven-team meet.
“Those were good wins,” senior epeeist and captain Chandler Clay said. “[The four schools have] good programs, and we did well to beat them.”
Senior sabrist and co-captain Thomas Abend attributed the Tigers’ depth with their success.
“A lot of the freshmen did really well, as did a lot of seniors,” he said. “We were good across the board.”
Princeton faced its toughest tests of the day against Penn State and Harvard. The men and women both suffered narrow losses to the Nittany Lions, who consistently have one of the best fencing programs in the nation.
“Penn State is always tough,” Dudas said. “They are the reigning NCAA champions and have talented teams. We lost 14-13 on the men’s side, however, so we know that we are not too far from a win. That bodes well for the future.”
The Tigers’ last match of the day saw them facing their Massachusetts host, with the men’s side posting a 15-12 victory and the women suffering an 16-11 defeat.
“It was very good for the men to beat Harvard,” Dudas said. “We did not have a lot of key athletes, and we know that we’re still capable of beating them.”
The men’s match against the Crimson was tight until the end, with sophomore foilist Alex Mills and freshman epeeist Ed Kelley pulling out wins in the clutch.
Though the women did not get the result they had hoped for after battling the Crimson, their spirits were still high.
“[The women’s] foil and epee teams actually beat Harvard in the bout,” Clay said. “The sabre team lost because we didn’t have three of our starters — two of whom were at the World Cup in Germany and one of whom had mono. Keeping that in mind, we’re not in a bad position. It really was a pretty good day overall. The freshmen got a lot of good experience, and we came away with wins.”
Looking forward, Dudas said he has strong expectations for the remainder of the season.
“I think we can be very close with all the teams in the Ivy League. To be honest, there are really two tiers in the league — Harvard, Columbia, UPenn — and we have very strong programs and are all competitive with each other. The rest of the [Ivy League] is decent, but they are on a slightly lower level. That’s our reality now. That’s what we’re facing. If we can beat those teams, then we’ll be in good shape.”
Princeton is looking to improve upon its results from last season’s national championships: Eight fencers qualified, and the team finished eighth overall at the competition. The Tigers will take a few weeks off from competition before heading to Evanston, Ill., in January to compete in the Northwestern Duals.
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