Swordswomen Foil Opponents; Capture New England Trophy

For the Harvard women's fencing team, yesterday's New England Championship marked the climax of a hard-fought season. The meet was one of the most grueling of the year, and the competition some of the toughest,but the swordswomen never looked sharper. In the end they showed their points were all in the right place.

Although the Crimson carried the trophy off the strip yesterday. the 12-school meet was one of the tightest the team has seen since it was formed five years ago. At one point, any of the five schools competing--Brandeis, MIT, Yale, Brown and Harvard--could have taken the meet.

One round from the end, the MIT squad pulled ahead. But the Crimson outlasted and outmaneuvered its opponents, and in the final minutes pulled into a three-way tie for first, winning the meet on indicators (touches scored).

Ironically, the team won on the one point which has troubled it most throughout the season--consistency. "It's not that we overwhelmed top schools, coach Shelley Bermann said yesterday. "We held our own against top schools and fenced incredibly well against lesser ones. We didn't throw a point away," he added.

In a meet where each fencer battles 11 others over a period of six to seven hours, this consistency paid off. "We were really psyched and we never let down," junior Carolyn Powell explained. "When you fence five minutes of every 30, it's really hard to stby psyched for that long, but somehow we did it."

The swordswomen did not even know they had won the meet until it was over. Although the team knew it was in the top ranks by the final bout, it was not until the judges checked the team totals and found errors in the Brandeis calculations that the swordswomen knew they had won the meet.

"It was incredibly dramatic. For us to win that way after all the frustrations we've had this season was just so amazing,"sophomore Beth Schwinn said.

In the entire meet, the swordswomen lost only 11 of 44 bouts. Although none of the swordswomen made the individual finals, both Schwinn and freshman Vivi Fuchs came within one bout of qualifying.

As a result of their victory yesterday, the swordswomen have been invited to the Nationals later this month, but they do not know yet if they will attend.