Fencing: Men, women sweep Ivy championships

“It was the second time the entire team came up and rushed the strip,” said junior epeeist Jonathan Yergler, who finished off Columbia to ensure that Princeton would have at least a share of the title. “Just having the Columbia win to finish it off was really a storybook ending.”

“I actually have never heard the team cheer so loudly,” senior epeeist and captain Eunice Chan said of winning the championship. “It was one of the best moments I’ve ever had here in all four years.”

Princeton’s teams both came in ranked second in the nation, but they knew that competition with their Ivy League opponents would be fierce. Harvard’s men came into the weekend ranked third in the country, followed by No. 7 Penn and No. 10 Yale. Harvard and Penn were ranked seventh and ninth, respectively, on the women’s side.

“A lot of people in that building were definitely pulling against us,” Chan said.

Unfortunately for those people, the Tigers got off to a perfect start, going unbeaten on the first day of the round-robin tournament. The women began by dropping Cornell 23-4. Junior sabrist Eliza Stone led the team with a 9-0 record on the day. Fellow junior sabrist Joanna Cichomski went 8-1, along with freshman foilist Ambika Singh and freshman epeeist Katharine Holmes to give Princeton decisive victories over Cornell, Penn and Harvard.

The men also defeated Penn handily, but the Harvard match came down to the wire. The Tigers held on to a narrow lead ferociously until Yergler put it away by defeating James Hawrot 5-3. Princeton won 14-13.

Yergler and his roommate, junior epeeist Ed Kelley, posted 5-1 records on Saturday, along with senior foilist Alex Mills.

On Sunday, the women outdid themselves, hitting the ground running with a 25-2 thrashing of Yale. Down early against Columbia, the Tigers went undefeated in the last round to beat the Lions, as junior foilist Brianna Martin secured a win for her team with a 5-2 victory in the 14th match.

The men did not have it easy on Sunday. Yale put up a good fight in the first two rounds, but the Tigers eventually put them away 18-9, as sophomore sabrist Phil Dershwitz clinched Princeton’s third win. Next up was Columbia. The Tigers lost their first two bouts and spent most of the match either tied with the Lions or up by a small margin. In the 13th bout, Mills won to bring the total score to 13-13 and keep his team’s chances of remaining unbeaten alive.

As it had against Harvard, and against Notre Dame the week before, the job of winning the rubber match once again went to Yergler. He was down 2-1 early on but won the last four touches to give the Tigers another 14-13 victory over an excellent opponent.

“My teammates put me in a great position to win those bouts,” said Yergler, quickly pointing out that Kelley won one more bout than he did in the tournament.

For both teams, beating Columbia guaranteed at least a share of the Ivy League title. It was the women’s third championship in a row, while for the men it meant a great improvement over last year’s fourth-place finish. But both squads still needed to beat Brown to win the title outright. Though the Bears had not had a great weekend, outright victory was not a sure thing. The Tigers were motivated by their desire for the championship and their desire to not share it with Harvard.

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“We didn’t want to share,” Mills said. “We didn’t want to share at all.”

They didn’t have to. Both squads put Brown away to cap off a perfect Ivy League championship.

“We were very professional about it, and we came out and took care of it,” Yergler said.

Singh was the standout of an already exceptional women’s team. Due to an injury, she had not fenced in a collegiate match before Saturday, when she went 17-1. Her performance, which seemed to come out of nowhere, earned her two of the tournament’s highest honors: Most Outstanding Rookie and Most Outstanding Performer.

“She was fencing absolutely beautifully,” Chan said. “Very confident, very calm the entire time.”

Holmes and junior epeeist Hannah Safford were named First Team All-Ivy, as was Stone, who finished the tournament with a 16-2 record.

On the men’s side, Kelley, Yergler and Mills all made First Team All-Ivy, with sophomore sabrist Robert Stone making the second team.

His selection made Mills the 18th fencer in Ivy League history to be named First Team All-Ivy every year of his collegiate career.

“I’m just glad that I was there for my team for all four years at Ivies,” he said.

Mills and Chan emphasized that their teams were cohesive, supporting themselves and each other through every match. Both noted that this support kept the Tigers confident and positive when, from time to time, they looked less than dominant.

“We have two teams and, obviously, three weapons, but it’s one squad,” Mills said.

That squad now sets its sights on the NCAA Tournament, which takes place in late March. Both teams came in fourth last year and has every reason to expect another outstanding finish.

“The confidence is there, the skill is there, the atmosphere is there, and we’re all really, really pumped,” Chan said.