Fencing Takes Home Beanpot Title Over Local Competition

Another year, another hoisting up of the annual Beanpot trophy for the Harvard men’s and women’s fencing teams. With three wide-margin victories over, MIT, Boston College, and host Brandeis, the women cruised to their eighth consecutive Beanpot berth, while the men battled through injuries to finish 3-0 against the same schools for the same honor as their female counterparts.

The wins came a little more than 48 hours after competing at the Ivy Round Robins, at which the men walked away with a share of the Ivy title while the women finished tied for second. Despite injuries to fencers of varying severity, both Crimson squads took the short ride to the home of the Owls for yet another cycle of competition on Wednesday evening.

“We definitely worked together as a team even though we were all exhausted from competing in the past weekend,” sophomore foilist Liana Yamin said. “And then we came out for a successful day.”

HARVARD WOMEN’S FENCING

Given that the Crimson women never allowed anyone in the rest of the field close with three wins of at least 11 bouts, ignorant bystanders might not have known that the team was coming off a full tournament weekend just days before.

“We’re all still pretty tired from [this past weekend],” Yamin said. “We definitely expelled our energy at Ivies, [with] people coming off injuries. So coming into this, we had to psyche ourselves up and get ready for a third day of competition in such a short time.”

The Eagles came the closest to threatening, tallying eight bout victories against Harvard fencers. Even then, the Crimson had 19 wins of its own for the 19-8 triumph after trumping Boston College by a 24-3 score the previous year.

Though Harvard failed to beat last year’s performance by purely numerical standards—the Crimson had a total bout score of 66-15 in 2014 and went 62-19 this season—any other negatives from the day were much tougher to spot.

“We talked about not underestimating anyone we see out there because anything can happen,” Yamin said. “Out entire motivation at Ivies was that anything can happen in five-touch bouts, so we definitely carried that with us [to the Beanpot].”

HARVARD MEN’S FENCING

Though the seventh edition of the fencing Beanpot ended with the Crimson hoisting the trophy again, the going was much tougher for Harvard this time around.

With co-captain Duncan O’Brien out with a leg injury sustained in the Crimson’s Ivy League Round Robins victory, the group looked to others on the team for support.

“Once we warmed up, things really started to get going,” junior épéeist Peregrine Badger said. “We ramped the adrenaline back up [from the weekend].... I think in the circumstance we did a very good job today.”

After drubbing Boston College 26-1 in the 2014 edition of the Beanpot, Harvard faced a tougher Eagles squad in 2015. However, the Crimson was consistent in its three matches, dropping Brandeis, the Engineers, and Boston College by scores of 18-9, 19-8, and 19-8, respectively.

The effects of the draining Ivy Round Robins tournament manifested itself in a unique way Wednesday evening—with O’Brien out, junior foilist Michael Woo fenced with the sabré in his stead. Woo also was fighting a hand injury of his own, which prevented him from competing with his usual weapon.

“Watching our guys fence sabré with a foilist’s style was really fun to watch, and [Michael] did very well too.” Badger said.

With Woo fencing with a different weapon, the other three men’s foilists stepped up with solid performances of their own. While many fencing programs carry only three fencers of each weapon, having the fourth foilist has proven to be handy in recent weeks due to the injuries.

“I think our men’s foil program is exceedingly talented...we have more than the three that we absolutely need, and I think that’s paid off a ton, especially given the fact that Michael can’t fence foil right now,” Badger said. “[The other foilists] really picked up the slack and did a great job.”

—Staff writer Caleb Y. Lee can be reached at caleb.lee@thecrimson.com.