On Saturday morning, at the New England Intercollegiate Fencing Conference Championships at the University of Vermont, the men’s and women’s fencing teams absolutely dominated against fierce competition.

Brandeis lined up against more than a dozen elite opponents, including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sacred Heart University and Boston College.  MIT defeated the men’s team back in the Beanpot Tournament on February 15, 13-14, while the MIT women’s team defeated the Judges at the first Northeast Fencing Conference Meet on November 19, 10-17.  At that same meet, the women were unable to defeat Sacred Heart, dropping the match by a score of 13-14. Furthermore, for the month of February, the men’s team was only able to break even at the Eric Sollee Invitational in Cambridge with a 3-3 record, and both the men’s and women’s teams came away from the Beanpot Tournament with overall losing records of 1-2 against BC, MIT and Harvard University. 

Both teams came out with a noticeable vengeance to start the month of March with incredible all-around performances at the NEIFC Championships.  The women’s and men’s teams individually took home first and fourth place, respectively, while together they earned a joint first place finish for narrowly beating out both MIT and BC.  They bested previous opponents and new competitors alike en route to these impressive showings.

For the women’s team, their greatest contributions came from their foil and epee squads.  The Judges brought home gold and silver hardware with a first-place overall finish for their foil squad and a second-place overall finish for their epee squad.  Recent UAA Athlete of the Week, foilist Jessica Gets ’20, continued her excellent season as she came in third place individually in her section.  As a first-year, Gets will be exciting to watch throughout her already impressive college-fencing career.  Foilists Joanne Carminucci ’19 and Chaya Schapiro ’17 were key contributors, as well, with first- and second-place individual finishes in their sections, respectively.  For the epee squad, epeeists Liz Feller ’18 and Dakota Levy ’20 led the way with second-place finishes in their individual sections, displaying their astounding talent and terrific value to the team.

The men’s team likewise impressed with their foil squad but also blew away the competition with their saber team.  The Judges’ saber squad came in first place overall for the tournament, while their foil squad was able to bring home the silver with a second-place finish.  Saberist Leon Rotenstein ’20 had a standout performance as he came in second place in his individual section.  Saberists Kyle Berney ’18 and Curtis Wilson ’18 helped to carry the squad as well, with third- and first-place finishes in their individual sections, respectively.  For the foil squad, foilists Ian Quin ’20 and Elishua Litle ’18 both came away with gold medals in their individual sections to lead the charge. 

Both Brandeis teams will look to build on their outstanding performances at the NCAA Northeast Regional at Yale University this Sunday.  For spectators, it will be interesting to see if the Judges can keep up the same level of success from this past weekend.