To start off Women’s History Month and continue their postseason competitions, the women’s fencing team traveled to Drew University in Madison, New Jersey to represent the Judges in the National Intercollegiate Women’s Fencing Association (NIWFA) Championships this past weekend. The meet was held on Saturday, March 4. After their successful competition at the New England Intercollegiate Fencing Conference (NEIFC) Championships the weekend of February 25, the women’s team was looking to have another competition full of similarly positive outcomes.
First on the piste for the Judges was the sabre squad composed of Kate Xikes ’26, Calla Lee ’25 and Kayla Turnof ’25. All-American Maggie Shealy ’23 was not part of the sabre squad during this competition. The Judges sabre squad won a combined 35 wins out of their 45 individual bouts. Despite not having Shealy competing for them, the women’s sabre squad was still able to capture the bronze during their competition.
Regarding their head-to-head competitions, the squad won nine bouts with a score of 3-0 and four others with a score of 2-1. Their success was only slowed due to losses to gold medalists from Temple University and silver medalists from Johns Hopkins University.
On the topic of squads, the Judges foil squad placed fifth out of 16 teams while the epee squad placed ninth based on their bout results. The foil squad scored 32 points while the epee squad scored 24 points overall.
As for individual competitions, five Judges–Xikes, Turnof, Bronwyn Rothman-Hall ’24, Hannah Du ’26 and Alex McKee ’25–qualified for individual competitions. Xikes and Turnof were in the sabre individual competition, Rothman-Hall was in the epee individual competition and Du and McKee were in the foil individual competition.
In the sabre individual competition, the second-seed, Xikes, won her first round bout 15-8, over an opponent from Johns Hopkins University, but was upset in the quarter finals 15-14 to the tenth seed from Stevens Institute of Technology. Turnof placed sixth off of a 15-9 win against a Haverford College opponent in the first round and a 9-15 loss against a fourth-seed opponent from Wagner College in the second round. Xikes and Turnof placed fifth and sixth, respectively, just missing the podium.
Finishing eighth place in the epee individual competition was Rothman-Hall who was initially seeded 12th. Having upset an opponent from Rutgers University 15-14 and falling 15-9 to the silver medalist from Long Island University, Rothman-Hall was able to significantly outscore her projected bout outcomes.
In the individual foil competition, Du was the fourth seed in her direct elimination, though she fell 15-14 in an upset against the 13th seed from Temple University. McKee was seeded 11th going into the competition and lost 15-4 in the first round to a competitor from Long Island University.
Looking ahead, the men’s and women’s fencing teams will compete at Harvard University this weekend on Sunday, March 12 at 9 a.m. for the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Regional Championships.
