Fencers Split In First Weekend of Ivy Meet

While the ending records were positive, the coach and players of the Harvard men’s and women’s fencing teams couldn’t shake a sense of disappointment.

The Crimson traveled to Ithaca, N.Y. this weekend for Part I of the Ivy League Championships, in which the squad faced off against the University of Pennsylvania, Yale, and Cornell. The men emerged with a 1-1 record, beating the Bulldogs and falling to the Quakers, while the women finished 2-1, falling to Penn as well but beating Yale and Cornell.

“I anticipated on the women’s side that we should’ve won,” head coach Peter Brand said. “I really felt that we could beat Penn.”

Both teams started off with a close loss to the Quakers. The No. 9 Harvard women won the majority of the sabre bouts over the No. 10 Quakers, but lost foil by a score of 7-2 and epée by a score of 6-3, leading to a final deficit of 17-10.

“We just had a very weak performance from the epée squad,” Brand said. “We had some problems on the foil side too. Our sabre squad was very good, very consistent all day.”

The foils were particularly underwhelming. One of the Crimson’s strongest squads this season, the trio could not pull themselves together.

“Our strongest squad is the foil squad,” Brand said. “They dominate and they’ve been very successful all year long...except against Penn. It was a disaster and an anomaly.”

The No. 6 men also lost in a tight match to the No. 7 Quakers. Though Harvard dominated epée, 7-2, with a 3-0 performance by sophomore James Hawrot, it lost foil, 8-1, and sabre, 5-4, en route to a 15-12 defeat.

“We had another very close match with Penn, as we did last year,” Brand said. “It could’ve gone either way.”

Brand cited a “very weak performance” by the foil squad as part of the problem. Plagued by inconsistency throughout the year, the group is still trying to find its rhythm.

“[Freshman] Tommaso [di Robilant] is consistent, the other two were up and down,” Brand said of the foil fencers. “[Consistent success] hasn’t happened yet, and I’m hoping it will change.”

For both the men and the women, slow starts were a problem against the Quakers.

“Everyone seemed to get off to a really, really slow start,” sophomore epée Noam Mills said. “Penn was our first team, which really didn’t work out [in our favor]. To get really going takes some time. By Cornell we were really fencing, like we could have against Penn.”

As Mills noted, after the difficult Penn losses the road was smooth for the Crimson. Harvard first faced and beat its historic rival, Yale, in two easy wins.

Though the Bulldogs had gained momentum from a crushing defeat of Columbia, the Crimson men triumphed over them, 16-11, with a 7-2 showing in epée, 4-5 in foil, and 5-4 in sabre.

“The men did really well,” Mills said. “Yale [was] fencing really well—better than everybody expected.”

The women had an equally strong showing, dropping sabre, 5-4, but winning epée, 5-4, and dominating foil, 8-1. Sophomore Shelby MacLeod and senior Arielle Pensler, both foils, each went 3-0 in their bouts.

Finally, the women’s team faced the Big Red and won handily again. Harvard rode an 8-1 sabre victory and two 5-4 scores in the other categories to a total winning margin of 18-9.

Both the men’s and women’s sabre squads were consistently good in the tournament, and the men’s epée performance was formidable. Among the rest of the squads, performances were inconsistent at best.

“Maybe some of us got a bit too cocky,” Mills said. “Everyone could’ve fenced a little bit better.”

One notable fencer was sophomore sabre Caroline Vloka, who went a perfect 9-0 on the day.

“[Caroline] had a standout performance today,” Brand said. “She still needs to improve on a couple of things, but they’re fairly minor, and I anticipate that she will finish strong again.”

With these results, Harvard must sweep its opponents next weekend at Part II of the Ivies in order to share the Ivy League title. Facing a very strong Princeton team, Harvard will need an extraordinary performance from every fencer.

“We’re having a meeting tomorrow to impress on everybody that they need to fence their best,” Brand said. “Princeton is strong, but anybody still has a chance to come out on top. Everybody needs to pull their weight, and if they don’t, I will be very angry.”

Fortunately for Brand, the players echo his determination.

“We’re down one, but if we beat Columbia and Princeton we are all set,” Mills said. “We’re really going to have to step it up.”

—Staff writer Charlie Cabot can be reached at ccabot@college.harvard.edu.