What a great weekend!
First of all, a huge hats-off to the William and Mary fencing club. They did a really great job running the tournament and put a nice emphasis on the 'memorial' part of the event. Kudos!
Also, many, many thanks to everyone who came out to watch and to cheer on our fencers. It was wonderful having such a great crowd of family members and fellow fencers encouraging our competitors. Thank you!
And now on to the fencing.
As noted last night, Brady, Bryce, Mark, Rhiannon, and Scott fenced in Saturday's foil event. This gave us one fencer in every pool -- I love being kept busy like that! Everyone was smiling at the end of the pools and rightfully so. Bryce narrowly avoided being matched up against Scott in the first elimination round and did well for himself against the number 3 seed, scoring 7 good touches before being eliminated. The smile on his face said it all -- he did well for himself and knew it! Brady and Mark won their first DE matches but then found themselves paired up against the number 1 and number 4 seeds respectively. (Scott was the number 2 seed, just to give you an idea of how very nearly we had clubmates against each other early on!) Although they were both eliminated in the second round, they both went out fighting and were rightfully proud of themselves. Then in the third round, the round of eight, it happened: clubmate versus clubmate. Rhiannon went up against Scott in what was definitely the most exciting fencing of the day. Neither fencer held anything back and there was quite a crowd gathered by the end. Scott came out on top but she made him work hard for it and took home a shiny for eighth place as a result! Scott continued on to the finals where he was finally beaten by occasional IWFC visitor Seth Daily, finishing in second place.
Oh, and by the way, Scott also fenced saber, which started during the down time between foil pools and DEs, so he was just a little tired by then! But he wasn't too wiped out to win the saber competition, which also updated his C to this year. Congrats, Scott!
Sunday's epee event had Dean, Ed, and Scott (again!) showing the club colors. Dean met his personal competition goal despite being in a pool that was double-stripped, which means fencers didn't have the usual rest time between bouts. He was tired but he was happy! And he capped it off with an exciting DE, scoring 11 points and making it into the third period before finally being defeated. I don't know which of us had the bigger smile! Ed had a solid showing in pools, which left him in a good position going into DEs. He made it through the first couple of elimination rounds but the third round turned out to be the not-so-sweet sixteen when his day was ended by eventual tournament winner Matthew Peppe. Scott went 50/50 in his pool bouts, something about being tired from Saturday's fencing or something, go figure! His seeding resulted in his going up against the number 1 seed in the third DE round in a pretty exciting match. (Hopefully video will be forthcoming, I'll review it later today with any luck.) He won that match as well as the next one but was finally eliminated in the quarter finals, finishing the day in third.
Fantastic job, everyone! I heard so many great comments and compliments about you all weekend. Let's do it again soon!
Full results can be seen here. I'll post photos and video after I get a chance to look over them so keep an eye out for more posts! And if you have photos and videos to share, please let me know. I'd love to add them too!
