With high hopes heading into Saturday's competition at the Wellesley Invitational, the Tufts women's fencing team kicked off its season with a second place finish, losing only to Cornell.
Wellesley picked up third place, followed by Vassar College in fourth.
The Jumbos had won the Wellesley Invitational the past two seasons in a row. A close loss to Cornell prevented Tufts from extending that streak.
The competition featured foil, epee and sabre weapon groups, with each group consisting of three fencers and an alternate. Tufts faced off against Cornell first, losing a close match 15-12, before edging out Wellesley 14-13 and beating a weaker Vassar squad 19-8.
"It's a shame we didn't fence Cornell last," junior foil captain and fencing president Julia Shih said, "because I think we would have been able to beat them."
The Bears' foil group barely edged the Jumbos', winning five of nine bouts. Shih won all three of her bouts, and freshman Emily Cooperman also won a bout for Tufts. The sabre group won six of nine of its matches against Cornell, featuring three wins from sophomore Louisa-Mae Zouein, the captain of the sabre squad. The difference-maker in the Cornell match came in the epee bouts, which Cornell dominated by a score of 7-2.
"On a whole, the team fenced well," said sophomore Lauren Bowen, who recently switched from foil to epee, but still managed to win a bout on the day. "This was a good start to this semester's season."
Coach Jason Sachs was unreachable for comment on the match.
The season has gone well so far for the women's team, including a successful outing last semester at the University of New Hampshire, which included competition from MIT, Brown and UMass. The Jumbos picked up a significant win over MIT, a team that has posed a challenge for the team in the past.
"We've had a decent season," Shih said. "We have several experienced freshman, and we've faced a broad range of schools and difficulty levels."
Those freshmen are especially important this year because one of the team's strongest fencers, Katherine Zouein, is abroad this semester. As a sophomore last year, Zouein finished 19th in the nation in the sabre category. Her sister Louisa-Mae, however, is confident that the team will continue to do well even during her sister's absence. The younger Zouein also competed nationally last year, finishing 21st.
"We have a lot of new girls, but a good team dynamic," Louisa-Mae said. "And we're the cutest fencing group in the league according to other teams."
"We've got a very young team that is already incredibly talented and is bound to continue improving," Shih added on a more serious note.
Both Zouein and Shih voiced confidence in rising freshman sabre fencer Diana Barger, who was one of the top scorers at Saturday's match.
The men's fencing team is also having a strong season, although they did not compete in the tournament. Led by senior co-captains Brian Cooperman and Nam Nguyen, the team looks to continue its success this semester.
"We've had a great year and we have a lot of good freshman," Nguyen said.
While the men compete as a club team, they have faced stiff competition from perennial fencing powers including Harvard, MIT and Brown. The team has racked up wins against Boston College, Sacred Heart and Brown, losing only to MIT and Harvard.
"We fence a lot of NCAA teams for fun," said sophomore retuning fencer David Werth. "This is our first year back as a competitive team, but we're doing really well."
Although there are few other club teams with whom the men compete, the team especially looks forward to competition from rival UMass.
"UMass is really the only other [competitive] team," said Cooperman. "If we beat them, we're the best club team in this area, and we beat them in our first conference meet."
The next meet for the women will be on Feb. 6 at the MIT Invitational. Both the men and the women will compete in an upcoming tournament to be held at Tufts on Feb. 12.
