When a team goes into its biggest meet of the year, confidence is always an important factor. After both the men’s and women’s fencing teams swept the competition at the Historical Meet Plus Wednesday, Columbia’s fencers are sure to have a winning mindset going into the Ivy League Championships this weekend.
The women dropped just five bouts throughout the day, defeating Vassar 25-2, NYU 25-2, and Sacred Heart 26-1. The men beat Vassar 20-7, NYU 21-6, and Sacred Heart 19-8.
The men’s performance especially is representative of how much the squad has improved, in both depth and talent, over the past few years. The men lost to both NYU and Sacred Heart the last two seasons.
These results come on the heels of upset wins by both squads against national powerhouses at both the St. John’s Super Cup and NYU Duals two weeks ago.
“We lost only five bouts against three teams,” senior sabrist Sammy Roberts said of the team’s performance on Wednesday. “That’s amazing. What’s even more amazing is that we able to put in our varsity team and JV team—everyone stepped up and everyone won. It feels really good to do that at Columbia in the Blue Gym.”
“We fenced fantastic,” head coach Michael Aufrichtig said. “We defeated all three teams handily. We came out with the attitude that we wanted to bring it to these teams.”
Both the men and women went into the season unranked after finishing seventh at last year’s NCAA Championships. As a result, this year’s team has fenced with a chip on its shoulder, according to Roberts.
“I think everyone was upset that we weren’t ranked,” Roberts said. “I think we came into this last competition trying to show ourselves that we are a great team.”
“We feel like we had a fresh start and that we really needed to do something this year,” said freshman Andrei Tapai. “We went into this year with a message and that message is winning.”
The Lions will next take the strip this weekend at Yale for the league championships.
“Mentally, they are very confident and that’s right where we want them to be,” Aufrichtig said.
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