The vibrant sound of steel hitting steel resonated through Gosman last weekend as Brandeis hosted the NCAA Men's and Women's National Collegiate Fencing Tournament. The annual championship brought 144 of the top fencers from 33 schools together to vie for individual and school titles.
Brandeis finished 17th overall, scoring 28 points. The Judges were the highest ranked Division III team, as well as the third-highest team from New England, falling behind Harvard (73 points, eighth place) and Yale (44 points, 13th place).
The tournament was won by Ohio State University, a first-time champ, with 194 points for the second-highest team total in the five years in which the tournament has featured six weapons. Penn State University finished a distant second, 34 points behind the Buckeyes.
Sophomore Adam Crompton of Ohio State defended his 2003 sabre title, while his freshman teammate Boaz Ellis claimed his first NCAA title in foil. St. John's University junior Arpad Horvath took home his second epee titl; his first was in 2002.
Brandeis boasted four qualifiers in the tournament. Kai Keller '07 and Andrew Sofer '06 competed in epee, Benji Rostoker '05 qualified in foil and from the women's side, Jessica Lewis-Turner '04 made her second NCAA appearance in epee.
The fencers competed in a round-robin of 24 fencers in five-touch bouts. After the round-robin, the top four fencers with each weapon were ranked by single elimination, 15-touch bouts. A fencer earned one point for his school for each of his wins. An institution's finish was determined by the total number of points accumulated in the duration of the tournament.
In his first year on the Brandeis team, Keller finished 15th in epee, winning 10 bouts, including a defeat over 2004 champion Horvath. A slow start on Saturday, with a series of one-touch defeats and overtimes, made the recovery on the second day of competition an arduous task.
Regardless of his impressive final rank, Keller was disappointed with his overall performance.
"I am not really satisfied. I could have done much better if I had been more focused and felt better on Saturday," he said. "What was really frustrating was that I won against most of the really good guys, including this year's champion, but screwed up the easy bouts."
He linked his lack of energy to a shortage of sandwiches in the concession stand -a necessity for physical rejuvenation. Despite his discontent in this year's results,
Keller is already looking forward to 2005. "Since this was my first season at Brandeis, this year's championships were a good learning experience, and I hope I will get a chance to do better next year."
Sofer scored four points for Brandeis, finishing day one in 22nd place with three wins and pulling out his last victory on Sunday.
"This was quite an accomplishment for Andrew," coach Bill Shipman said regarding Sofer's play last weekend. "He is a younger fencer, so this was a good experience for him. He had a lot of very close bouts."
Rostoker ranked 23rd in the final standing, earning four victories for the Judges. This was his first time at the NCAA championships. Last year he was an alternate due to a sprained ankle. He enjoyed the fierce competition and ended the weekend with a positive attitude.
"The first day was extremely challenging for me," Rostoker said reflecting on his performance. "After adjusting to the intense format of the competition and eating some brownies, I didn't finish DFL so all is swell.