Fencing: Fencers dominate home meet against N.J. opponents

Despite snowstorms and the postponement of the match, the men’s and women’s fencing teams came out strong in a meet last Sunday, with both teams taking first place. The men competed against New Jersey Institute of Technology (1-16) and Stevens Institute of Technology (7-7), while the women competed against NJIT (6-9), Stevens (19-3) and Fairleigh Dickinson (5-9).

The men’s fencing team (16-3) beat NJIT in 25 of 27 matches. They won eight and lost one match in foil and epee and won all nine matches in saber.

The Tigers went on to win 17 of 27 matches against Stevens. Of nine matches in each event, Princeton won eight in foil, five in epee and four in saber.

Head coach Zoltan Dudas noted that in this meet, there was an opportunity for both starters and the second team to fence.

“We mostly gave a chance for our second team to participate, because we didn’t have any very highly ranked teams to fence with,” Dudas said. “It is very good that we have such a long bench, and that these fencers can be substituting against strong opponents and do very well. It was good to give them the opportunity to show how well they can do.”

Sophomore Jonathan Moch won all six of the foil matches he fought in, while sophomore David Mandle contributed five wins and sophomore Gregory Kirschen added four. Sophomore Edward Kelley added three wins against the NJIT Highlanders epee team. The saber team — including senior Paul Boswell, senior Steven Liss, junior John Stogin and sophomore Craig Limoli — went undefeated against the Highlanders, and Stogin continued his undefeated streak against Stevens, winning both of his matches against the Ducks.

The women’s fencing team (21-3) won 26 of its 27 matches against NJIT, including eight in foil and nine in epee and saber. The Tigers beat Stevens 22-5, going undefeated in nine matches in foil and winning five in epee and eight in saber. The women finished the tournament by beating the Fairleigh Dickinson Knights 21-6, including seven wins in epee and five in saber. The Tigers’ nine wins in foil went uncontested, because FDU does not have a foil team.

Senior Karen Petsche took all six of her contested foil matches, plus three uncontested ones against the Knights. Sophomore Rocky Rothenberg won all five of her matches in foil against Stevens and NJIT. Junior Lyuba Docheva added eight wins for the saber team against all three teams.

“I always like to match the level of the opponent with my fencers because it is always good to have a more challenging bout,” Dudas said. “The opponents were not easy at all, but the substitutes can fence on a daily basis with very highly ranked fencers, and they are improving a lot.”

Some members of both the men’s and women’s teams will be competing in the Junior Olympics this coming weekend. Among those going is freshman Jonathan Yergler, who Dudas noted already had an outstanding performance at the U.S. Fencing Tournament in San Jose, Calif., last month. Freshman sabers Joanna Cichomski and Eliza Stone, neither of whom have competed in a U.S. Fencing tournament before, will also be going to the Junior Olympics, which Dudas said he expects to be “a good challenge for them.”

The Tigers will go on to compete against all of the Ivy League in a two-weekend round-robin tournament on Feb. 21 and Feb. 28. The first weekend tournament will take place at Cornell, and the next weekend will be at the University of Pennsylvania.

“We’ve been focusing more on the Ivy competition because we have a very great season behind us. We’ve fenced most of the top teams and done very well against them,” Dudas said. “Both teams feel that we have a chance to do something good.”