UC San Diego women’s and men’s fencing teams competed in the season-opening BladeRunner Invitational at LionTree Arena on Sept. 20-21, bringing home nine medals across the weekend competition. Senior Zara Fearns and sophomore Pia Huber won gold in women’s saber and epee, respectively.
BladeRunner Invitational is a regional fencing competition, drawing athletes from across the world to compete in hopes of qualifying for national championship meets. In regional tournaments like this, performance is evaluated individually. Collegiate athletes also compete in NCAA tournaments, where performance is assessed as a team.
Fearns, a two-time MPSF saber champion, won all 12 of her bouts as she blazed through the women’s saber field. She won the final 15-9 against Zara Djamirze of San Diego.
“BladeRunner is always kind of a hard competition, I think, because it’s [a] newer regional competition [and] a lot of the people that I’m fencing are my teammates because it’s in California,” Fearns said. “I know a lot of people, so it’s like a different mindset you have to go into it with. But today, I was just trying not to be too nervous, just stay professional, [and] stay really focused all day.”
In women’s epee, the Tritons claimed three of the four medals, with gold for Huber and bronze medal finishes for senior Bella Balogh and junior Natalie Brooke Gebala. Huber defeated teammate Balogh in the semifinals 15-12, while Gebala fell to Jessica Wu of Irvine, California. Huber would go on to defeat Wu in a close 15-14 bout.
In the men’s saber competition, senior Arnav Raja made it to the final, but a loss to William Lim of Dallas, Texas, would see him settle for silver.
Senior Sunny Sharma and freshman Nurzhan Abzhanov both advanced to the semifinals in men’s epee. Sharma struck out in a two-touch loss, but Abzhanov advanced to face Daniel Chirashnya of Campbell, California, in the final.
The men’s epee final was Abzhanov’s 12th bout of the day. By the end of the first period, Abzhanov seemed to be tiring, down 7-5. The two traded touches in the second period. Abzhanov stayed in contention, coming as close as 10-9, before Chirashnya went on a 4-0 run to win the final.
“I was able to score some good touches, initiated myself,” Abzhanov said. “But after 9-10, it started being kind of tough being the first guy to initiate because he also started changing his fencing.”
The loss meant Abzhanov took second place in his first fencing tournament in the U.S., having trained in Kazakhstan before coming to UCSD.
“I just came in and was preparing myself for anything,” Abzhanov said. “I kind of took it one bout at a time, and I was able to be successful at it. I got to fence some American guys for the first time, and I liked it. Compared to fencing that I’m used to, here, it’s more physically demanding and more focused on endurance. And as a freshman, I’m new to all the weightlifting, all the strength training stuff, and I think that’s the area that I have to focus on from now on.”
Sophomore Katherine Kim and freshman Bonnie Davis made it the farthest through the women’s foil field, though both fell in their semifinal matches and took bronze. Davis faced a crushing 15-1 defeat at the weapon of Chloe Sun of Orange, California, who would go on to win gold in women’s foil. Kim put up a fight against Joy Liu of Tustin, California, though she ultimately lost 15-11 in a frustrating defeat.
On the men’s side, no Tritons made it past the quarterfinals in foil. Senior Jacob Levy, who won the event at the BladeRunner Invitational last year, was eliminated in the quarterfinals by Martin Nguyen of Los Angeles, California.
UCSD will be back in action at the upcoming Western Invitational, an NCAA tournament hosted by the Air Force in Colorado on November 22-23.
