Zouein sisters compete at the NCAA National Fencing Championships

When you think of famous sisters in the sporting world, Venus and Serena are probably the first to come to mind. They may not be as well known as the tennis stars, but Tufts has its own dominant sister act consisting of Katherine and Louisa May Zouein, nationally competitive saberists on the women's fencing team.

The sisters had a chance to show off their fencing prowess over spring break, when, on Friday and Saturday, Katherine and Louisa May competed in the NCAA national fencing championships at Brandeis. In the saber category, Katherine and Louisa May, finished 19th and 21st, respectively, out of 24 qualifiers. The sisters' performance resulted in a tied 25th place finish for Tufts as a team out of 32 schools.

In a field that featured saberists from big name schools such as Duke, Penn State, Ohio State, and Notre Dame, Tufts was the only Division III school to qualify more than one fencer.

The tournament started out with a bang for the Zouein sisters: they were seeded to face off against one another in the first bout of the day. While the two sisters are as close to even as possible in terms of their fencing abilities, Katherine, a year senior, has had the edge throughout the sisters' collegiate careers.

This was not the case on Friday. Louisa May, a freshman, defeated her older sister for the first time in two years. Louisa May would go on to win four more bouts in the tournament. Katherine would finish the tournament with six victories. The one victory edge resulted in the older sister's slightly higher finish in the overall rankings.

While happy for her younger sister's initial victory, Katherine expressed disappointment over her overall performance in the tournament.

"On the first day of the tournament I was doing really well, and I came out of it feeling really excited," Katherine said. "But on the second day I really just had an awful day."

Despite this, the Zouein sisters are clearly two of the most talented saberists in the nation. Their performance led Tufts to a national finish well above all but a handful of Division III schools, and you can expect the Zouein sisters to continue to lift the Tufts fencing program to the top ranks of the NCAA for the next several years to come. By the time the two graduate, the youthful Katherine and Louisa May might be as nationally dominant at fencing as Venus and Serena are at tennis.