Bulldogs Whip Crimson In 15-12 Fencing Upset

The Yale fencing team, overcoming a strong Crimson epee performance, upset Harvard, 15-12, last Saturday in New Haven. The Yale match concludes a season in which the Crimson achieved their highest Ivy standing ever. Harvard winds up the season knotted in a three-way tie for second place in the Ivy League with Yale and Penn. All three had 3-2 records.

The loss was a costly one for the Crimson. Not only did it deprive Harvard of sole possession of second place in the Ivies, but it snapped the Crimson's nine-match winning streak and cost Harvard the Big Three fencing championship. Yale, by virtue of Saturday's win over the Crimson and a previous triumph over Princeton, takes the 1972 Big Three title.

The Crimson epee squad, led by captain Geza Tatrallyay and sophomore Eugene White, totally outclassed the Bulldog opposition, winning seven of nine bouts. Tatrallyay, fencing in the last Ivy League match of his career, swept to three straight wins. White also swept three, two by impressive 5-0 scores, to easily muzzle his Bulldog foes.

However, despite the awesome epee performance, Eli domination in foil and sabre destroyed the Crimson. The Bulldogs mercilessly hounded the Crimson foil men, who lost seven out of nine bouts. Only Don Valentine saved the foil squad from the embarrassment of losing every contest. Valentine won two bouts against one setback.

In sabre, where Harvard figured to be strong, Yale completely stifled the Crimson attack. In first round action, wins by Terry Valenzuela and Gordon Rutledge had Harvard fans envisioning another Crimson domination in sabre. However, in the second round the roof fell in on the Crimson sabre men, and Yale won three straight. The losing trend continued into the third round. Harvard, feeling the pressure of an upset-in-the-brewing, dropped two out of three.

The ambush of the Crimson sabre men and the officiating surrounding that ambush became the center of a heated controversy that infuriated the Harvard contingent. Both the Crimson players and coach Edo Marion felt that the sabre officiating had not been objective in New Haven.

"We should not lose to any Ivy League sabre team," Marion said yesterday. "There was a fourth man competing for Yale in sabre. We were deprived of at least three sabre bouts by biased officiating."