Jumbos happy with performance despite only one win

Despite having only one or two practices to shake off the rust of winter break, the women's fencing team suited up, weapons in hand, for its first conference meet of the season Saturday.

The meet, held at Boston College, featured the host Eagles, as well as Tufts, Brown, Smith, Brandeis, and MIT. While the Jumbos managed only one victory -- a solid defeat of Smith -- senior epee captain Talia Alexander said that the squad's results were impressive considering how little preparation time this semester's abnormally late start afforded the team.

"Considering that, I think we did amazingly well," Alexander said.

Although Tufts lost overall to four of its five competitors, several meets were close. Brown won by the narrow margin of 15-12, and BC slipped by Tufts, 14-13. Several individual bouts were also close, with Tufts coming up short, 5-4 on several occasions.

"I think [coming back from break] was a huge factor," Alexander said. "I feel like if we'd had another week of getting back into the rhythm of fencing, we'd have ended up on top of a lot of those 5-4 bouts."

Sophomore sabre captain Kat Zouein expressed similar sentiments, citing the lack of recent practices as a likely factor in some costly fatigue towards the end of the day.

"Everyone got a little tired at the end, which is explainable because we hadn't been practicing," Zouein said.

Overall, though, Zouein said she was pleased with the team's results, and said coach Jason Sachs was "surprised" and satisfied as well.

"I think we did better than we expected," Zouein said. "We had some extra practices before the meet so we could get some fencing in, but [the team] didn't come back [to Tufts] early, and because we got back to school a week later this year, we had this conflict with the meet being so soon."

Zouein and the rest of the sabre squad -- freshmen Louisa May Zouein and Tiffany Tran -- provided many of Tufts' strongest results, as they defeated every school except their first opponent of the day, MIT.

"The first bout of the day we were kind of shaky, but we pulled it together," Kat Zouein said. "After the first bout with MIT, I think we lost only one bout."

Tran notched her first career victory in the sabre competition, as did classmate Elisabeth Sibley in the epee division. Rounding out the epee squad was Alexander, along with freshman Katie Muller and sophomore Regan Cerato.

Senior foil captain Christina Zahara led her squad -- sophomore Julia Shih and freshmen Lauren Brown and Natalie Grano -- to a relatively successful day that included an exciting sweep of one competitor.

"The foil squad did amazingly well. They swept one of the teams and that doesn't usually happen, so that was very exciting," Kat Zouein said.

Next weekend, Sachs will keep his team busy, with two competitions scheduled.

Sunday, the team will compete in an open non-collegiate event at the Boston Fencing Club, where Tufts' individuals will have the opportunity to face various members of the fencing community in an attempt to gain national ranking.

Saturday, the Jumbos will make the short trek over to the Wellesley Invitational, a meet Tufts won the last two years in a row. Other teams traveling to the meet include Vassar and Smith.

"This year, we're much more of a beginning team," Alexander said. "So I expect it to be much more difficult to win, but I think we have a fighting chance."