A Cut Above

After another great season, a Harvard fencer has captured another individual national title.

On the women’s side, freshman Alexandra Kiefer took home the gold medal and national title in the foil, while juniors Noam Mills and co-captain Caroline Vloka placed second in epée and third in the saber, respectively, at the NCAA Fencing Championships this past weekend hosted by Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio.

After two days on top of the women’s foil standings, Kiefer remained only one of four fencers left in contention for the foil title. Among the other three fencers were 2008 Olympian and two-time national champion Doris Willette of Penn State, Princeton freshman Eve Levin, and St. John’s University sophomore Evgeniya Kirpicheva. In the semifinals of the tournament, Kiefer claimed a narrow 15-12 victory over Kirpicheva to reach the finals, while the fourth-seeded Levin was able to stage an upset over top seed Willette to make the final an All-Ivy affair. In the women’s foil final—the final match of the four-day tournament—Kiefer waltzed away with the title with a commanding 15-7 victory over Levin.

For Kiefer, this has been a dream of a season.

“I feel like it hasn’t even hit me yet,” Kiefer said. “Obviously I’m excited. This season has been a lot of fun, and I’m glad that I finished with good results. It was a lot of hard work and especially practicing with the team gave me a lot of motivation.”

The freshman became the Crimson’s third female national champion ever and the second female champion in recent years, after Vloka claimed the saber title last year.

For the second year in a row, Mills snagged the No. 1 seed in the epée after round-robin play.

En route to the final, she was matched up against a familiar foe—Penn State’s Margherita Guzzi Vincenti.

In last year’s championship, Vincenti narrowly defeated Mills in the final round of the epée; in this year’s semifinals, Mills beat Vincenti decisively, 15-8, to knock her out of title contention.

Thus Mills reached the final bout of competition after the knockout stage but was unable to take the final step in claiming a gold medal. In the championship round of the epée, Mills fell narrowly, 8-7, to Notre Dame’s Courtney Hurley to come away with a silver medal.

A title rematch was similarly waged in the women’s saber between perennial foes: the Crimson’s Vloka and Duke’s Rebecca Ward. In the 2009 tournament, Vloka and Ward clashed in the saber final, with Ward walking away with the title after a decisive victory over Vloka. Last year, the two clashed again in the final round, but this time with Vloka gaining the upper hand and the title.

This year, the duel between Vloka and Ward was waged during the semifinals. In a closely fought matchup, Ward managed to gain the upper hand and trumped Vloka, 15-11, to enter into the final round, where she then defeated Princeton’s Eliza Stone to win her second sabre title in three years.

Rounding out the Harvard women’s performance at NCAAs were sophomores Katherine Chou and Felicia Sun, who placed 15th and 23rd in the foil and epée, respectively.

On the men’s side, although the Crimson was unable to claim individual national titles, its five male qualifiers all posted consistent performances, contributing to the Harvard team’s overall sixth-place finish in the Championships—won by Notre Dame.

The men were led by freshman Michael Raynis, who placed sixth in the epée, and Lucas Lin, who placed 14th in the foil, in addition to sophomore Thomas Kolasa and junior captain Valentin Staller, who placed 14th and ninth in the saber, respectively. Rounding out the squad were junior James Hawrot and sophomore Tommaso DiRobilant, who each placed 18th in the epée and foil, respectively.

As the Harvard fencing team looks ahead, what is certain is that the future looks particularly bright for the Crimson. After this season, Harvard’s fencing squads will graduate only two seniors and lose Mills, who will no longer be eligible. With nearly all of the Crimson’s standout fencers—Vloka, Kiefer, Staller, Kolasa and Raynis—returning next year, Harvard is all but guaranteed continued strong showings in the seasons to come.

“Even though it’s going to be difficult to replace Noam, we have three additional people coming in next year who should help us in that department,” Crimson coach Peter Brand said. “Overall, we are anticipating some great performances again next year, but this year, especially on the women’s side, was quite special.”

—Staff writer Oluwatoni A. Campbell can be reached at oluwatoni.campbell@college.harvard.edu.