Prior to last Saturday's Northeast Conference Meet at Boston College, men's fencing captain and foil Eugene Vortsman '08 recalled epée Will Bedor '10 acting unusually confident."He came into the day saying he was going to be undefeated," Vortsman said. "I was like 'All right, I won't stand in your way.'"

Bedor backed up his words, winning all 12 of his epée bouts in leading the men's team to a 5-0 record and a sweep of the Northeast Conference. The wins over Boston College (15-12), Dartmouth College (19-8), Sacred Heart University (21-6), Vassar College (16-11) and Brown University (19-8) moved the Judges' record to 16-1 on the season.

The women's team took four of their five matches, losing only to Brown 19-8 and finishing second in the Northeast Conference. They are now 14-5 this season following last Wednesday's 19-8 win over Wellesley College.

Bedor has emerged this season as the leader of a deep epée squad and he continued to impress last Saturday.

"He's very athletic, competes very well, and doesn't freak out or anything," coach Bill Shipman said. "He stays tough."

Bedor and the epée squad compensated for uneven efforts at times from the foil and saber squads. Against Boston College, the sabers won only two out of their nine bouts, but the epée squad made that up themselves with seven victories in nine chances. Similarly, in the Judges' win over Vassar, the foil team struggled with just three wins in its nine bouts, but once again, the epées, led by Bedor and Damien Lefheldt '09, came through with a 7-2 record to compensate.

Shipman credited the epée squad's strength to its depth.

"Their levels are all rising as they compete against each other every day in practice," Shipman said. "If they come in and don't fence hard in practice, they know they aren't going to fence as much in the next tournament."

The Judges' victory over Brown, however, was the most definitive. The Bears rely on their strong foil team, led by sophomore Adam Pantel, to carry them, but Pantel was defeated twice-once by Jimmy Fruchterman '11 and once by Vortsman-and the Bears never recovered.

"When [Fruchterman] beat [Pantel] first, he told me what worked for him," Vortsman said. "I took his advice, and I beat him once again."

On the women's side, the Judges defeated Smith College 18-9, Boston College 16-11, Dartmouth College 18-9, Sacred Heart University 15-12 and Vassar College 17-10, but closed the day on a down note with a 19-8 loss to Brown that denied them the chance to win the Northeast Conference crown.

The foil team remained the backbone as it has all season, led by Jessica Newhall's '09 11-0 mark on the day. Newhall even performed strongly against Brown, winning both of her bouts, including one win over top rookie Francesca Bartholomew in which Newhall trailed 3-0 in the best-of-five bout with less than a minute remaining on the clock.

The saber and epée teams continued to show their youth, but there were some marquee performances. Epées Caitlin Kozel '09 and Emma Larkin '11 each defeated star Boston College sophomore epée Heather Ciganek to spur the Judges to a win in that match.

Kozel, who participated in the NCAA Championships last season, has struggled at times as she has tried to master a more defensive style of fencing but Shipman praised her effort last Sunday, and Kozel said she saw improvement this weekend.

"Lately, I've just been attacking a lot, and not working on my defense or my re-posting like [Shipman] wants me to," she said. "It's getting better. I definitely fenced much better at this tournament than the ones last semester."

In last Wednesday's win over Wellesley College, led by an 8-1 record from the saber squad, the Judges stormed to a 19-8 win, fueled by the motivation of dropping last year's contest to the Blue.

"The drive from losing last year motivated us to win," Newhall said. "Last year, we didn't have the extra push that we wanted to show them that we were the better team."

Both teams next compete at the Brandeis/Massachusetts Institute of Technology Invitational at home Saturday at 9 a.m.