The men and women’s fencing team headed to New York University on Sunday for the NCAA Northeast Regional meet. This was more of an individual meet, as the fencers sought qualifications to the NCAA championships at the Ohio State University later this month. 

This was the final meet before the announcements, and several fencers strengthened their cases for qualification. In particular, foilist Noah Berman ’15 and saberist Adam Mandel ’15 placed 11th in their respective weapons of foil and saber, and sophomore saberist Ashley Jean ’17 made it to the final pool of women’s saber to finish 12th. With the events finished, these three earned consideration for at-large bids to the national championship. Berman is up for a second appearance, while Mandel is looking to continue his streak of appearances every year during his collegiate career, and Jean seeks her first career appearance. 

Berman started the day as the 15th seed in men’s foil. 

He advanced out of the opening round with a 3-2 record, notching wins against fencers from Yale University, NYU and Boston College. 

A 3-3 mark in the second round proved to be enough for Berman to pass over teammate foilist Len Grazian ’17 for a spot in the final round. Berman beat Grazian by a 5-2 score to add to his wins against Sacred Heart University and another win against Boston College. 

After adding two more wins in 11 bouts in the final round, Berman ended as the 11th seed. 

Mandel secured his spot in the second round with a 5-1 opening record, losing narrowly by a 5-4 score to a fencer from St. John’s University. Mandel mirrored Berman’s second round with a 3-3 record of his own as he defeated opponents from Columbia University, NYU and Harvard University. 

This earned Mandel the 10th seed in the final round, while fellow senior saberist Jess Ochs-Willard ’15 finished just outside the top 12 with a 2-4 record in the second round. Mandel added three wins in the final round, including a revenge win against the fencer from St. John’s that had defeated him in the first round. 

Jean started the day as the 18th seed, and in her first round of the day, after a bye, she went 4-2 in the second round, defeating Yale, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Brown University and NYU to rise to 15th overall. 

Saberist Deborah Abiri ’16 finished the second round two seeds above Jean after four strong wins against Brown, Columbia, Cornell University and Yale fencers. 

Abiri could not maintain her pace, but Jean kept her good day rolling against another fencer from Cornell and fencers from St. John’s and Tufts University to earn her spot in the final round. She was winless in the final round despite several of the decisions ending 5-4. 

Foilist Caroline Mattos ’16 finished 16th in women’s foil, as she failed to qualify for the NCAA Championship for what would have been for a third-straight year, but her performance has been impacted by injuries throughout this campaign. 

Epeeist Thomas Hearne ’16 moved up eight spots to finish as the 16th seed in men’s epee, while Liz Feller ’18 finished 17th in women’s epee. 

Bids to the national championship are announced Tuesday, and the Judges look to have representation at Ohio State later in March. The season will come to a close for all players not selected for the championship.