Super Bowl Sunday a Sideshow for Fencers

By Steven E. Brier

FEB. 3, 2008 -- It was cold, windy and dark Sunday morning when the Columbia High School fencing teams crawled on the buses to head off to the district tournament and take on 11 challengers. It was after Super Bowl kickoff when they returned, carrying enough medals to fill another wing in the CHS sports hall of fame.

The girls team placed first overall in the squad competition, with the sabre and foil squads clinching first for their weapons and epee coming in second. The boys team placed second overall, with epee grabbing second, foil third and sabre coming in fifth.

The two gyms at Wayne Valley high school were crammed. With 12 teams, two squads per team, nine starters per squad, substitute fencers, coaches, managers and trainers all hustling from strip to strip, the atmosphere resembled an ant hill more than an organized sporting event.

The morning was devoted to squad competition, with a series of round-robin matches taking place to determine the squad champions. Those who fenced in all of the squad competitions went on to the individual matches in the afternoon. With the number of teams and the limited time, it wasn’t unusual to see a fencer finish the three bouts against one team, hand off the strip to a teammate and rush to a different strip to start fencing a different team. In the sea of white fencing outfits and mesh masks, spectators and coaches alike used the individualized team socks as beacons to track everybody.

But within the chaos, discipline reigned.

The girls teams fared best, with foil and sabre each going 29-1 in the morning and epee 22-8. The boys were 24-6 on epee, 22-8 on foil and 19-11 on sabre.

Undefeated in the morning squads competition were Ricki Drattler and Stephanie Schneider on foil and Juliet Turalski on sabre. Rebecca Grohman (foil), Kathryn Steck, Faizah Muhammad (sabre) and Tiffini Austin-Ginlock (epee) each had one loss.

In the afternoon individuals competitions, Columbia again showed the breadth of its talent. Austin-Ginlock came in first in epee, Muhammad second in sabre and Grohman third in foil. Steck placed fourth and Turalski sixth in sabre while Drattler picked up a second-place medal and Schneider placed seventh in foil.

For the boys, Brian Kaneshige placed first in foil, Russell Valle placed second in epee and Jackson Huemer placed eighth to round out the individual medallists.

The round of victories in the districts followed on the heels of three dual-meet victories earlier in the week.

On Tuesday, the teams took on West Morris Central at home, defeating the boys 19-8 and the girls 23-4. Among the high points of the night was the first varsity victory for Emma Gilheany on foil, who came off the bench to defeat West Morris’s A-strip fencer 5-0.

The team traveled to Pingry the next night, defeating them 20-7 for the girls and 21-6 for the boys. Jonathan Polson, a freshman epeeist, picked up his first varsity victory in a hard-fought 5-3 bout.

On Friday, the teams fenced Watchung Hills at home, with both girls and boys squads going 21-6.