A couple of semi fencing things before the meat of the update. The St. Mary Parish Festival is this Saturday and our fencing tournament is a part of it. We will have a table and have been given the 12 noon slot to do a fencing demo. The available adult fencers will be busy with the event, so I would like to have a number of our younger fencers (experience level and weapon doesn’t matter) to help with the demo. Just a little footwork and bladework, maybe a bit of a lesson depending on whom it is. Obviously it would be nice to see St. Mary fencers, but other people are welcome as well.
WHQR still has the Sunday October 25 10 am – 1 pm time open for the pledge drive. Can we get three people to help us getting a few hours of free publicity? Please let me know ASAP.
We had a few people fencing at the NAC in Richmond. Joe McLaughlin did the Div II men’s sabre. He ran into the issue all of us older fencers confront at some time. He was at least three times as old as any of his competitors. He gave it a good shot but lost his first DE.
Connor Costa of UNCW fenced the Div I event. He went 2-3 in his pool. In his DE he fenced his opponent evenly, but unfortunately the match started with Connor at 0-3 because of equipment problems. It ended at 12-15. Connor finished 147th out of 231. This even better than it sounds because this is an Olympic Year and the event counts in the point standings for making the Olympic team. A number of the best fencers in the country who normally skip these events are competing to try and get the points to go to Rio.
Erica Julien fenced the Div II epee and ran into similar issues as Joe. She did push two of her opponents to 4-5. She won her first DE as her opponent withdrew. She then got to fence the number 1 seed and pushed her to 7-15.
Samantha Milewski also did the Div II epee. She went 3-3 in her pool. In her DE she battled back from deficits of 1-5 and 6-10 to take the match to priority, but lost on a late fleche from her opponent. She fenced even better the next day in the cadet. She was 4-2 in her pool, beating both Cs and and taking the number one ranked fencer (an A) to 4-5. In her DE she ran into a woman listed as an E who had actually won her C the day before in the Div II, and earned her B in this event. Samantha ended up at 39th of 115, a very solid showing.
Regular practice today, UNCW will be back for Wednesday night, and will we do another armory night on Thursday. This one will probably concentrate on foil so we can get things ready for Saturday.
The next set of classes on board Camp Lejeune will start this Friday night.
Our
next adult event is this Saturday. Open foil, open epee, and a D and
under foil. St. Mary’s Parish
is having a Parish Fall Festival, so we would like to have huge events
to show off what we do. Right now, epee should be a B, the open foil just needs 3 bodies to be a B, and the D and under needs 5 people to be a D event. Those of you who have talked to me about getting in to those events need to sign up ASAP to help draw in those last few people.
Our
next youth event will be October 24th. Foil at 10 am, sabre at 1:30
pm, and epee at 3:30 pm. We should have a bunch of new youth fencers to
make the events larger. I could probably use some help refereeing foil.
next youth event will be October 24th. Foil at 10 am, sabre at 1:30
pm, and epee at 3:30 pm. We should have a bunch of new youth fencers to
make the events larger. I could probably use some help refereeing foil.
Also that weekend are a number of adult events. The Tiger Open at Clemson has foil and epee events currently rated as A2s, a C sabre event, and large D and and under events. Charlotte has an open epee that might make it to a B event and a D and under that might make it to a D event. Mid-South has cadet and junior sabre events.
Fredericksburg has Vet events. Their foil and epee are both at B level.
Fredericksburg has Vet events. Their foil and epee are both at B level.
The week leading up to Halloween we will be probably shut down the Wednesday night
and Thursday (no afterschool either day) as St. Mary gets ready for the school Fall Festival. They do their Haunted House in the basement.
The closest event on Halloween is in Williambsburg, VA.
The November adult beginner class starts Monday, November 2nd. The new set of afterschool classes will start the same week, Monday through Thursday. The next set of homeschool beginner classes will start on November 4th.
November 7th is the first Homeschool League meet, out in Oak Ridge. If you want to fence, all of your information to be on the team needs to be to the Southeastern Cardinals by November 1. Public school epeeists are allowed to fence on B teams, this is for ages 10 and up, so let me know if you are interested. Since you aren’t homeschooled you do not need to join the Cardinals.
There is also a college meet at Greensboro on the 7th for UNCW people’s possible participation. No adult events yet listed for the area.
The 14th is the first NCFL meet and we will be hosting. This is a very large high school foil event and we need all the referees we can pull. A number of you did this previously and it will be time to give back. I need to get an idea of who wants to participate, 6th grade and up. Hopefully we can field two B teams, plus Hoggard and Coastal Christian.
The 21st is JOs at a location near Durham.
pax vobiscum,
Greg Spahr
Head Coach
Cape Fear Fencing Association
“The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but that’s the way to bet.” Damon Runyon
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