The most dangerous teams in the playoffs in any sport are those that finish the regular season on a high note. And with just one meet left before the NCAA Northeast Regional Championships, the women's fencing team is peaking at the right time.
After dropping their previous three matches, the Jumbos slashed their way to three overall wins this past weekend at the Stevens Institute of Technology, defeating Queens College, New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) and Fairleigh Dickinson University (FDU).
All statistics were obtained from the team, because the Tufts Athletics Department does not regularly publish information on the fencing team.
"I think at this point in the season our team is really starting to come together," coach Ariana Klinkov said. "The team is making unbelievable strides at each meet, and it's really exciting to see them progress as the season moves forward."
Even though the Jumbos lost their final two meets of the weekend to Temple University and Johns Hopkins University by scores of 19−8 and 16−11, respectively, they still came away from the weekend feeling positive.
"I feel that our meets in New Jersey went really well," freshman Laurel Hutchison said. "We performed well as a team and were all very supportive of each other. The epee and sabre squads are usually very strong, but the foil squad fenced very well in New Jersey, too."
The team's third, final and most impressive win of the weekend came against FDU in a 21−6 rout. The epee, foil and sabre squads all recorded victories in their respective events, beating out the opposing Knights by 6−3 scores in each competition.
Tufts defeated NJIT 16−11 for its second triumph of the weekend, claiming both the foil and sabre events 6−3, but falling just short in the epee competition, 4−5.
The Jumbos started off the weekend with a decisive 12−6 victory over Queens College. The epee and foil squads both prevailed by scores of 6−3.
In terms of individual standouts, Klinkov pointed to three of the team's probable regional qualifiers: senior quad−captains Georgia Ranes and Coryn Wolk and freshman Julia Hisey.
"Hisey has been performing very consistently all year," Klinkov said. "She did quite well this weekend, winning well over 50 percent of her bouts, and has won about 70 percent of her bouts this season. Coryn and Georgia both did fabulously this weekend, setting us up to qualify several athletes for the Regional Championships — something that would be a great achievement for our team."
According to Klinkov, the team will find out which members have qualified for regionals — set for March 11 — today. The trio of Ranes, Wolk and Hisey are expected to qualify, along with junior Sarah Danly and sophomore Abigail Hepworth.
And despite fencing being such an individual sport, Klinkov and her fencers are stressing one concept above all heading into the final weeks of the season: teamwork.
"With this team there's no ‘prima donna' star — everybody's working together as a team and helping each other out," Klinkov said. "As a coach I think that's the nicest thing you can see. When you walk into a meet late in the season and see everyone helping out, coaching each other and encouraging each other, it really speaks to how committed this group is."
With two weeks to prepare for the final conference meet (at Mount Holyoke on Feb. 27) before the regional competition, Tufts is setting the bar high. The epee squad in particular, which won the conference championship in 2009, has its eyes set on success.
"I think [the epee squad] can win the conference championship again this year, or at least come in the top three," Ranes said. "It's not that we have an individual standout; we all just really work well together as a team."
It remains to be seen whether or not the women's fencing team can build upon its successes from this past weekend and continue to build momentum into the Regional Championships, but there is little doubt that the program is headed in the right direction.
"This year's team has been part of something truly inspiring — we're completely transforming the fencing program at Tufts," Hutchison said. "We want to up our division in the coming years and start recruiting girls with United States Fencing Association ratings, a step that could take the program to a whole new level."
