The UCSD fencing squad finished off its regular season at its final tournament of the year at Irvine, Calif., on Feb. 22 against Western Region Division rivals Cal State Fullerton and Cal Tech, and now looks forward to postseason competition at the Western Regional Intercollegiate Fencing Championships on March 13.
Guardian file
The Triton men lost to Cal State Fullerton, 15-12, and beat Cal Tech, 23-4. The women lost to Cal State Fullerton, 20-7, and beat Cal Tech, 18-9.
“We consider Cal State Fullerton to be our primary rival,” head coach Stuart Lee said. “Whenever we compete against them, the competition is tense.”
This tournament concluded another solid season for both teams. The strength of the team was by far the men’s sabre team, consisting of sophomore Jeremy Runyon, sophomore Bret Martin and senior Kent Thompson. The threesome finished as the first, second and third individual fencers in their conference in their event, respectively. The sabre team was tops in the conference by a huge margin of 29 bouts. The men’s foil team finished second and the epee team fourth. Overall, the men finished first overall in their conference. On the women’s side, all three teams finished second, and overall the women finished second in the conference.
Other individuals who placed high in the conference include junior Raelyn Jacobson and junior Jennifer Ngolab (second and sixth; women’s sabre), freshman Lauren Walker and sophomore Mahsa Merat (third and fifth; women’s foil), freshman Jesse Taylor (fourth; men’s foil), freshman Kevin Watt and senior Timothy Tibbs (sixth and seventh; men’s epee), senior Lauren Muir, junior Elise Goodman-Tuchmayer and sophomore Julia Sosis (third, fourth and seventh; women’s epee).
The Western Division Championships will be held on March 13 at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colo. Fencers from each of the five schools (UCSD, Cal State Fullerton, Cal Tech, Stanford and Air Force) will fence for the right to compete at the NCAA Championships. The top two fencers out of 15 (three fencers from each of the five schools) in each event will represent the region at the NCAA Championships.
Unfortunately, the injury bug is plaguing the team at the worst possible time. According to Lee, Runyon, despite being naturally right-handed, has already been competing most of the season left-handed because of a right shoulder injury suffered early in the season. Despite the injury, he was able to finish first in the conference, a commendable feat. Unfortunately, he jammed his thumb in a bout at Irvine and now may not be able to compete at the Regional Championships. Also lost to injury is Watt, who severely sprained an ankle at Irvine.
“We’ve been unlucky this year as far as injuries,” Lee said. “Statistically, fencing is safer than ping pong.”
Despite the adversity, Lee has high hopes for a number of UCSD fencers to advance to the next level, starting with the dominant men’s sabre team.
“All three of those guys have a good chance to make it to Nationals,” Lee said.
Other fencers to keep an eye on include Taylor, who lost only three bouts all season (good for a fourth-place overall finish in a highly competitive field), Walker (who had a very strong showing at Irvine, losing only one bout) and Muir (who represented the region last year at Nationals).
“I want to enjoy myself this year,” Muir said. “Because I made Nationals last year, there’s slightly less pressure because I don’t have to worry about never making Nationals, but at the same time, there’s the pressure of trying to repeat, and do better, because you always want to progress. The competition should be tough this year, but I want to finish strong.”
For the first time at the Regional tournament, UCSD fencers will consider each other opponents as well, as they drop the team label and compete individually for the right to move on. Each fencer competes first against teammates before moving onto each of the other schools.
“We know each other the best, because we practice against each other all the time,” Martin said. “I think it will really help that we fence each other first, because it really gets us feeling competitive and pumped up.”
