Harvard Stymied in Search of Ivy League Championship

Following a two-month break between tournaments, the Harvard fencing team started the second half of its season with mixed results, as both the men and women ended the weekend 2-1 at the first half of the Ivy League tournament in New Haven, Conn. Each squad finished off Yale and Princeton in convincing fashion, the men by a score of 18-9 in both matches, the women by a score of 17-10 in each. It was pesky Penn that kept the teams from perfection, defeating the men, 16-11, and the women, 14-13.

Facing three teams it defeated last year on its way to a co-Ancient Eight title with Columbia, the Harvard men saw three beatable teams in the way of a repeat.

The men were led by an unprecedented performance from their epee squad.

Senior Teddy Sherrill and sophomores Karl Harmenberg and Billy Stallings led the Ivy pack, taking the first two spots as well as the sixth overall out of 16 total fencers. Sherrill went 8-1 on the day.

“They were fencing pretty well in the first round, about what we would expect, but in the later rounds they were performing exceptionally,” junior co-captain Kai Itameri-Kinter said, later adding, “they kept Penn to only one victory when we were really struggling. Without that we wouldn’t have been able to make it a close matchup.”

The men’s foil saw its strength diminish as the day went on.

After crushing the Tigers, 9-0, the squad came back with a mediocre performance in a 5-4 loss to the Bulldogs, and then was crushed itself in a 8-1 defeat against the Quakers.

The saber, too, went from one extreme to the other, beating Yale, 7-2 but losing to Penn by the same score.

“The deciding match was in saber against Penn,” coach Peter Brand said. “Penn has an extremely strong saber squad, I didn’t think we were going to beat them.”

The women’s side was full of pleasant surprises alongside depressing disappointments. After a struggle-filled fall with very few victories, the epee squad went 11-16 on the day, but posted an unexpected 5-4 win over the Quakers, giving the Crimson a real shot at going 3-0.

It was the struggles of the Jekyl-and-Hyde foil fencers that really hurt the squad’s chances against Penn. After beating two soft opponents in Yale and Princeton, the foilists dropped the ball against the Quakers, falling 6-3. They had marked the high-point of the fall season, punishing opposing squads in lopsided victories.

“I think they had an off day today,” Brand said. “Today they just seemed low energy, all three of them, they didn’t seem to have that spark. Today just wasn’t their day.”

In the saber, senior Alexa Weingarden outfenced the pack, going 9-0 and finishing tied for first with Columbia saberist Emily Jacobson, who fenced for the US Olympic team in the senior circuit.

Next weekend Harvard faces the toughest half of its Ancient Eight competition, with last year’s men’s and women’s champions in the form of the Lions on deck.

“Essentially what we have to do next week to have any hope of at least sharing the title, we have to beat Columbia and Brown,” Brand said. “Next week we have to go undefeated to have any chance.”

—Staff writer Madeleine I. Shapiro can be reached at mshapiro@fas.harvard.edu.