The fencing team is running on fumes.
After the Jumbos' sixth meet in the last six weekends on Saturday at Rutgers, conference play has finally and fortunately come to an end. Tufts finished the National Intercollegiate Women's Fencing Association (NIWFA) Championship, a competition in which they did not compete last year, sixth overall out of 17 teams, despite an injured and partially absent roster. Last weekend at New England Championships, Tufts finished sixth overall as well, but though the end results were the same, the means this time were much different.
In foil, the Jumbos were without senior captain Christine Lee, freshman Meredith Paul and sophomore Nadia Nibbs, who all competed last week and helped Tufts to a sixth-place finish in the weapon. This week, the foil squad suffered a harsher fate, as junior Naomi Bryant fenced in the A slot and freshmen Magda Kwieciszewska and Brianna Smith were forced to fill in as regulars for the first time this season.
"Briana Smith is a first-year sabre fencer, but we put her in for foil because we were out of options," sophomore epeeist Georgia Ranes said. "Our foil team was knocked down. Meredith Paul had a serious illness, [Nibbs] had a whole bunch of work and Christine was out of town, so we were really scraping. We figured a sabrist would fence foil better than an epeeist because of right of way, and she won three bouts in her first time ever fencing foil, which was really impressive."
"I fenced foil for about a month three years ago, but never at a competition before," Smith added. "The rules are the same as my weapon, and I won three bouts and got close to winning a lot of other ones. I ended up 13th out of 17 overall, which I feel is impressive since I didn't know what I was doing."
Though the epee squad did compete with its normal rotation, the exhaustive schedule had clearly taxed the team's bodies, as Tufts was at the meet for eight and a half hours, fencing 17 schools along the way.
Nevertheless, the epee squad had the best finish of any weapon on the day. Ranes, who fenced B, said that her most memorable bouts were defeating an epeeist from Temple, the eighth-ranked team in the nation, and fencing a girl who was competing with a broken arm. Ranes was in better health than she was in past weeks, but she could not say the same for her teammates junior epee captain Rebecca Hughes and sophomore Coryn Wolk, who both are suffering from knee problems.
"I think injuries played a huge role in the outcome," Hughes said. "My knees really hurt, so practicing has been a lot more difficult, and [Wolk] is pushing through injury, which makes it harder to compete."
"We hadn't had much sleep, so we were all tired, but all in all, we performed well," Ranes added. "I'm proud of our performance, but if we were a little more focused and had better, more consistent practices — people have been out due to injury and sickness — we probably would have pulled ahead more. It's been a long season, and there are a few scheduled meets we didn't necessarily have to go to, but we did. Next year we'll probably cut off a few to give us some downtime during the season."
Wolk and Ranes both advanced to the individual competition, though they were sent home after the first elimination round in bouts to 15, but their sabre counterparts fared better, finishing seventh out of 17. It was the weapon's second consecutive winning weekend after finishing fourth at the New England Championships. Sabre was led by freshman Sarah Danly, who rebounded from a 12th-place finish last week with a better performance, and junior sabre captain Alexandra Cheetham, who fence A and B, respectively.
Next Sunday, Tufts will send six team members to NCAA Regionals at MIT — epeeists Wolk, Ranes and Hughes; foilists Lee and Paul; and sabrist Danly. Though Lee has the best shot to advance to Nationals, all of the fencers are at a disadvantage coming from a Div. III school, which is a negative in the convoluted ranking system.
"I would like to fence well, but I don't expect to go to Nationals or anything like that," Ranes said. "I'm just looking to have a good day fencing and have a good end to the season. It's hard to have the necessary points to advance to Nationals in the position we're in coming from [Div. III]. It's not really in reach for me, so my goal is realistic. I want to fence well and be proud of the season I've had."
