Fencing Splits Brandeis Opener

The Harvard men's and women's fencing teams got off to a mixed start to their seasons against Brandeis last night at the Malkin Athletic Center:

While the women rolled to an 11-5 victory on the strength of seven consecutive wins, the men lost, 18-9.

"We worked out our jitters in the first half," women's co-captain Kristen Hughes said. "I think the last bouts are a sign of things to come. Brandeis is usually pretty good, although they are not our toughest opponents."

Strong Comeback

After going 4-5 in the first half of the match, the women went undefeated in the last seven bouts.

Both Hughes and co-captain Mayling Birney attributed much of the team's success to the performance of the team's four freshmen. Freshman Victoria Danics was especially successful, winning all four of her bouts.

However, the women's team will face tougher competition this weekend against Columbia and Princeton.

But while the freshmen were a strength of the women's squad, the freshmen on the men's side had a more difficult time, according to junior captain Kwame van Leeuwen.

"We have a lot of freshmen on the team," van Leeuwen said. "Collegiate fencing is much more challenging than high school fencing."

In men's fencing, a team is broken down into three squads: epee, foil and saber. Brandeis was much more experienced with three returning members on the foil squad and two members returning on the epee squad. In total, over half its team consisted of returning fencers.

The most experienced squad on the Harvard team is the saber squad. Experience showed as the saber squad won 5-4.

As a whole, Harvard's foil squad lost 6-3. However, the squad's highlight was freshman Edward Kim's victory over Brandeis senior Ken Benet, who had defeated Leeuwen earlier in the match.

The performance of Harvard's epee squad was the most disappointing. The epee squad was crushed by Brandeis, 8-1.

"They simply had a bad day," van Leeuwen said.

Both the saber and foil squads have the potential to qualify for the NCAA tournament, van Leeuwen said. Van Leeuwen also has the personal goal of qualifying individually for the NCAAs for the third consecutive year.

Nevertheless, van Leeuwen lost his first foil bout of the season--to Benet, 5-3.

"It's a strong win," an obviously excited Benet said after his match. "I was just going in and fencing."

William Shipman, the Brandeis coach, was equally impressed by Benet's victory.

"I'm very pleased with our foil team. Beating Kwame is always an accomplishment," he said.

Van Leeuwen came back to win his next two bouts and go 2-1. "The loss was unexpected but I tend to get better as the season progresses," van Leeuwen said.

The difficulty of the men's competition also increases this weekend as they face Columbia, Princeton, St. John's and MIT.