The women's fencing team nearly had its first winning weekend of the season but fell just short, earning a 3-3 record this Saturday in Carzo Cage. All three losses featured narrow margins of defeat as Tufts hosted the second conference meet of the year, improving to 6-13 on the year and 4-6 in Northeast Conference action.
"We did exactly what I expected," coach Jason Sachs said. "We were one strong fencer short of being competitive in every match. To beat these teams, you need to be on your A-game, as they have more experience and more resources. We were missing a vital part."
Sachs was referring to freshman Meredith Paul, whom he decided to bench after she missed a couple practices in the week leading up to the meet. Sachs admitted that the decision might have hurt the team's record.
"Meredith didn't fence, but with her there, we might have won every match," he said.
"It was really detrimental. She couldn't go to practice and if you don't go, you obviously can't fence," sophomore Georgia Ranes added. "That hurt the team because that was like three or four wins for us that we could've had but didn't get. Fencing teams like Wellesley, we lost by a margin of three or four, so if you throw in a couple of wins, we might have won."
Squaring off for the second time this season against Boston College and Sacred Heart, the Jumbos failed to achieve more favorable results on their second time around. Boston College has now bested Tufts 16-11 on two separate occasions, while Sacred Heart won 14-13 early in November and put a bit more distance between them in Saturday's 15-12 finish. The Jumbos have not won a single decision this year by a score closer than 16-11, while they have lost four matches decided by only two bouts.
Sophomores Ranes and Coryn Wolk headlined the epee squad, both going 14-4 in their bouts on the day.
"Georgia's our most improved fencer," Sachs said.
"Maybe a little bit of my attitude has changed, and it happens to be that's working for me," Ranes added. "I just hope it'll continue into next month."
Epee came across an extremely rare loss at the swords of the Wellesley Blue. Ranes won two of three, while Wolk almost followed suit. At one point leading a Blue epeeist 4-2, Wolk ended up losing the bout 5-4. Junior epee captain Rebecca Hughes dropped all three of her bouts.
"We were a little out of focus, starting the day off fencing Wellesley," Ranes said. "They were the first team we fenced that day and there was some pressure on us. It was a home meet and the last tournament [where] you could score points for NCAAs, so there was a lot of pressure on people like me and Coryn because Wellesley is ranked higher so we get more points if we beat them."
On the other hand, sabre, which last week was the least successful Tufts weapon, came up with a resounding 8-1 victory. Junior sabre captain Alexandra Cheetham and freshman Sarah Danly won all of their bouts while sophomore Caccy Bowlus went 2-1.
Senior foil captain Christine Lee surrendered her only overall loss to the Blue, but her single win in three bouts was actually the sole foil victory against Wellesley. Lee finished the day at 15-3.
Tufts scored easy victories over the University of New Hampshire, the University of Massachusetts and Boston University, all club teams that participate in conference meets. Foil and epee both went 8-1 against UMass en route to a 20-7 thrashing of the Minutemen. Freshman Michaela Paulson performed admirably when she had the opportunity, winning two of her three bouts against UMass.
"It was her first time out there, and she did really well," Sachs said. "Her issue is that she attacks short and misses, but as she got more into it, she began to understand her distance and got better with her attacks."
The Jumbos will now enjoy their first weekend of rest in nearly a month before resuming action on Feb. 21 at the Northeast Collegiate Championships at Mount Holyoke. The format of the team competition meet pits every team's A, B and C fencers against equally ranked fencers, and the total amount of victories are counted to determine the final results. Last year, Tufts' epee squad finished first.
"It would be awesome if we could repeat what happened last year," Ranes said. "We had really strong A, B and C fencers, and other teams' Bs and Cs are kind of OK, but they rely on their A fencer to pull them through. We didn't have a super strong A fencer, but our A, B, C and D are all pretty strong. Our Bs and Cs are better than the rest of the teams', though this year I think Wellesley and Boston College put together stronger epee teams, so we'll have to match that."
"I would like to take fifth to seventh, which is what one would expect," Sachs said. "It would be great to take third or fourth, and this team could even win, but it would take everyone fencing at their best level."
