Four Freshmen Fencers Named All-Americans

The Harvard fencing team capped its most successful season in decades with four freshmen earning All-American honors at the NCAA championships in Colorado Springs from March 22-23.

Freshmen saber Tim Hagamen and epee Julian Rose picked up second team status with seventh place finishes in their respective divisions. Fellow freshman David Jakus was an honorable mention in the saber after placing ninth.

In the women’s division, freshman foil Chloe Stinetorf was also an honorable mention All-American with a 12th place performance. Freshman Anne Austin rounded out the five-member Crimson team at the NCAA championships, finishing 14th in the foil.

Harvard placed eighth in the field of 31 schools, trailing just Columbia (fifth) and Princeton (sixth) among Ivy teams. The Crimson matched its most All-Americans in a single season with four. The last time Harvard accomplished this feat was 1997.

“It was a good result for a freshman,” Hagamen said. “It’s a unique competition, so it is difficult in that sense, but it was also a really strong field.”

The top 24 fencers in each weapon (epee, foil and saber) qualify in both the men’s and women’s fields with a maximum of two from the same school in any division. Harvard qualified two fencers in both the men’s saber and women’s foil.

Every fencer then has 23 bouts in a five-touch round robin tournament over two days. The top four in each division then advance to the semifinals.

“It is tough because you only get five touches,” Jakus said. “I definitely prefer the 15-touch bouts because you get to know your opponent. With only five touches you have to come in with a plan and hopefully execute. Even the top fencers will lose a couple bouts.”

Hagamen himself lost a number of close bouts that may have turned out differently had they gone to 15 touches. Both bouts against eventual silver medalist Ivan Lee from St. John’s and fourth-place finisher Alex Weber of Penn State came down to the final touch, with Hagamen falling 4-5 in both.

Ironically, Lee went a perfect 23-0 in the round robin, only to lose to Ohio State’s Adam Compton 15-13 in the finals. Only three fencers took Lee to the final touch in the round robin portion of the tournament—Compton, Hagamen and Jakus.

“A couple of the bouts were very close,” Hagamen said. “The ones with Lee and Weber could have gone either way. It is hard because it probably would have changed the ultimate outcome.”

The tournament was delayed two days because of a record snowfall in the Denver area that cancelled flights and prevented some fencers from arriving as scheduled. The Harvard fencers arrived before the snow hit and had to wait out the delay in Colorado Springs.

The championships, held at the Air Force Academy, were closed to the public as a result of security concerns with the ongoing war in Iraq.

“It was frusturating because there were fewer spectators than you would have seen had it been hosted at a regular college,” Hagamen said. “Still, the Air Force Academy did a really nice job of setting it up. The strips, the equipment and the facilities were all good.”

—Staff writer Timothy Jackson can be reached at jackson2@fas.harvard.edu.