The women's fencing team competed in the New England Championships this past weekend and entered the competition with high hopes. Though the team returned to campus having placed eighth out of 11 teams, there were many individual highlights to the event.
The stiffest competition during the weekend came from MIT, Brown, and Boston College. MIT ran away with first place with 67 total victories. Brown and BC, separated by only three victories, trailed MIT by more than ten and came in second and third, respectively.
"We competed fairly even with them in almost every individual bout," sophomore Amanda Haley said. "But the depth on these three teams allowed them to appear much stronger as a team than everyone else."
After these powerhouses, there was a fall off of ten victories, but the next group of six teams were all within striking distance of one another. Tufts was in this group and team members felt they could have finished higher.
"I am a little disappointed because we placed fourth the previous two years," junior captain Frances Harper said. "We did not finish as well as a team as I had hoped, but we did have some good individual results."
The New England Championships has both a team and an individual competition, and there is separation of the three weapon types - foil, epee, and sabre. In the team portion, three fencers from each school compete in each of the weapons against fencers from other schools. Then, the total victories of the nine starters are added together for the final team score.
In the individual portion, the top nine fencers from each weapon, determined in the team portion, face each other to determine an overall winner. This top nine consists of the best five "A" spot fencers, top three "B" spot fencers, and the best "C" spot fencer.
For the Jumbos, the highlight in the team competition came from the sabre weapon squad. Each of three Tufts fencers in this completion, juniors Kassara Williams, Diana DeLuca, and Emily Capatta, finished fifth in their group in the sabre divisions. Thus Tufts placed fifth as a squad.
"This is a reassuring result," Williams said about the sabreist's perfmances. "Our squad is the most experienced of the three at Tufts, so it was nice to see a good finish."
Both Williams and DeLuca have fenced in previous years, but Capatta is a newcomer. According to Williams, despite Capatta's inexperience, she is "one of the hardest working individuals on the team."
Though the foil and epee squads did not finish as high, there were a couple of bright spots in their fights. Freshman Zinger Yang, fencing in the foil "A" spot finished fifth in her division, and sophomore Amanda Haley finished fifth in the epee "B" division.
In the individual portion of the tournament, the Jumbos placed two fencers in the top nine of their respective weapons. Williams made the sabre elite and finished sixth overall, while Yang joined the top foilers and placed fifth overall.
Though the momentum gained from competitions through the year gave Tufts high hopes for this tournament, this is still a rebuilding year. The team does not have any seniors and five of its starters had no previous experience prior to this year.
The team still has a shot at closing the season off with a strong finish. Next weekend the team travels to Temple College to compete in the National Intercollegiate Women's Fencing Association.
"This competition is usually a little easier than the New Englands," Harper said. The teams come from all over the east coast, though many are concentrated from New York and Virginia, and should provide the Jumbos with valuable experience for next year.
There are also five members of the Tufts team that will be headed to Regionals at Columbia in two weeks. They are the entire sabre squad of Williams, DeLuca, and Capetta, along with Yang from the foil, and Haley from the epee. These individuals won at least 25 percent of their bouts throughout the season to earn this chance to fence at the meet.
