Fencing Coach Takes Off-Season Changes In Stride

By Steven E. Brier

DEC. 11, 2006 -- With a week to go before the CHS fencing team’s first meet, coach Arthur “Doc” Paulina wandered through a recent practice as if he had not a care in the world.

Five starters off the boys team gone? Check. Seven starters off the girls team gone? Check. Bounced out of the team’s long-time home by construction? Check. Daily practice starting later while they wait for a ride to the new location? Check.

Most coaches would be worried by all the changes and the pressure of living up to the team’s reputation. They boys team had a 17-3 record last year; the girls were 20-0 and have a 53-match winning spree. If Paulina is nervous, it doesn’t show.

“The boys are going to be really strong this year,” Paulina said, keeping an eye on some fencers going through their stretching exercises as practice wrapped up. “We lost 5 kids, but we were strong and deep last year so we put a lot of people in” for the experience, he said.

Apparently satisfied that the fencers were cooling off properly, Paulina warmed to the subject of his team’s prospects, unleashing a barrage of names, positions, strengths and weaknesses. “In boys foil, we have our A and B strip fencers coming back and are looking for a C. In epee we lost James Lambert and Alex Delaney, but we have Russell Valle (junior) and Ian Gammon (senior) coming back, returning junior Matt Heffley, Daniel Gordon (returning senior) for that spot, Max Hahlbeck and Paul Wilkening –seniors – and three who were freshmen last year – Ben Gold, Jackson Huemer and Sam Williams – who fenced all summer. In sabre, we have Sam Varon, Chad Attenbourough and a bunch of other seniors and juniors coming back.”

Pausing only briefly to check on fencers wrapping up for the evening and to chat briefly with some parents, Paulina turned to the girls team.

“The girls team has a tremendous record. We are on a 53-match winning spree. They were state champs four years in a row, and eight out of the last nine,” he said with pride.

But when the season ended, the team lost a lot, he said. “We lost two of our foilists, all three sabre and two epee starters,” he said.

For a coach who had lost seven of his nine starters, Paulina seemed supremely sanguine.

“We’re rebuilding, but rebuilding with a lot of talent,” he said, unleashing yet another staccato burst of names, grades and weapons.

“On foil, Abby (Caparros-Janto) is back one more year, as is Erin Hynes. Our third foil will be Becky Grohman, who had an outstanding sophomore tournament last year. Erin went most of the season undefeated, had our best winning percentage. I think we still have the best foil team in the state.”

“On sabre,” he said, pausing to look at his clipboard, “on sabre we lost the whole starting lineup. But we have two very good juniors in Catherine Steck and Julia Turalski, a number of seniors, junior Karin Oxford who changed from foil, Jess Worthy changed, Mariyam Hall and Marlena Skrobe.”

Not a complete list, to be sure, but enough to show that the team had depth it could call on.

As for girls epee, they escaped most of the graduation decimation. “We have two returning starters – Tiffany Austin and Magda (Usarek-Witek) with Michelle Micallef the frontrunner for the C strip,” he said. Among the other contenders, he said, were Tatiana Oudine, Margaret Brier, Sarina Appelgren, giving a good mix of juniors and seniors to round out this year and next.

By then the crowd had thinned out, leaving Paulina, his two fellow coaches and a few stragglers in the team’s current home. Being bumped out of the team’s old home appears to have been a good thing, since the old home was the CHS cafeteria. Before practice, the team had to help convert the room from a cafeteria to a gym, moving chairs and tables, unrolling mats, setting up scoring tables, laying out equipment, wires and cables and then starting practice. At the end of the night, they did it in reverse. In between, they occasionally got run out when the cafeteria was needed for another purpose.

The team now practices on the recently opened New Jersey Fencing Alliance facility at 50-58 Burnett Avenue in Maplewood. It is designed specifically for fencing and has everything in place. The scoring equipment is clearly visible, the fencing strips are the regulation size and the wires are not draped willy-nilly across the floor.

“Moving here has been a good thing,” Paulina said. “I was worried that freshmen and some of the other new fencers might not stick with it if they had to find their own way over here, but the school came through with a bus to transport everybody. Nobody gets lost and since there’s no setup to do we can get right to work. We haven’t lost time at all.”

The team’s season begins with a meet at Livingston on Friday, Dec. 15 at 4:30 p.m. The first home meet will be at the NJFA facility against Mendham at 5 p.m. on Dec. 21.