The Brandeis women’s fencing team managed a 2-2 split in last weekend’s Duke Invitational in Durham, North Carolina, while the men’s team dropped all four of its matches.
The men’s competition, which was held on Saturday, started with a 16-11 loss to the University of North Carolina. The sabre and epee squads lost by identical 5-4 margins, while the foil squad was defeated 6-3. In the second morning contest, the Judges suffered a heartbreaking 14-13 loss against Air Force. Brandeis foil managed a dominating 8-1 performance, but the epee lost by the same margin, and the saber squad came up one win shy of giving the match to the Judges.
After the lunch break, Brandeis squared off against two ranked opponents, and the team was only able to record 11 more duel victories on the day.
Against Duke, the Judges fell by a score of 21-6, with the best performance courtesy of the sabre squad with a 6-3 loss. The results were even worse against the national number 1, Penn State; Brandeis lost 22-5, with the low point coming in the foil squad’s 9-0 sweep.
Penn State took home the foil and sabre cups for the competition, while Air Force won the epee. Penn State Air Force, and Duke paced the field in the meet with identical 3-1 records. Meanwhile, the Judges fell to a 7-16 record on the season.
The women’s competition, which was held the next day, had a much more promising start for Brandeis. Buoyed by a 6-3 victory in the sabre and a 5-4 victory in the epee, the Judges took down North Carolina 15-12. The next match went even better, as the foil squad got their chance to shine with a 7-2 win amidst an 18-9 defeat of Air Force.
Unfortunately, that was the last time the Judges would taste victory for the weekend. The epee squad would record one final weapon victory by a 5-4 margin against Duke, but Brandeis was dragged down by a sweep in the foil, and they fell to the Blue Devils 19-8. The meet closed with the greatest challenge, a match against top-ranked Penn State, and Brandeis was shellacked 8-1 in the foil, 8-1 in the epee, and 9-0 in the sabre for a 25-2 loss.
Penn State was undefeated on the day, beating its opponents by a total score of 86-22 and easily taking home all three weapon cups. The Brandeis women still hold a very respectable 20-7 record for the year.
Both the men’s and the women’s teams resume action after the February break. On the Feb. 21, they will be at Mount Holyoke in South Hadley, Massachusetts for the New England Championships, and they travel to the Harvard campus in Cambridge three days later for the Beanpot Fencing Tournament.
