For Northwestern fencers, success is usually easy to come by. But after completely dominating the field in their first team competition of the season a week ago at the Western Invitational in Colorado Springs, Colo., the NU fencing team faced mixed results this past weekend at the USFA January North American Cup.
While freshman epeeist Courtney Dumas continued her strong rookie season with an 8th place finish in the junior event, the remainder of the Wildcats had difficulty posting strong performances in the USFA Division 1 portion of the tournament.
"We had one very good performance and the other performances were very middling," coach Laurie Schiller said.
The event, which took place at the Oregon Convention Center in Portland, Ore., featured more than 1,000 of the best fencers in the nation, including several Olympic and Senior World Championship medalists. For Schiller, the high level of competition was part of the reason for the Cats' results.
"Sometimes the draw finishes the way the draw does, and it's just unfortunate," Schiller said.
One example that Schiller cited in this unluckiness was junior foilist Dayana Sarkisova, who after fencing a successful tournament had to face Lee Kiefer, who Schiller said will likely be a member of Team USA at the 2012 Olympics, in the direct elimination round. Sarkisova ultimately ended the day in 25th, while Kiefer would go on to win the event.
"Overall my fencing wasn't terrible. I just had a little bit of bad luck," Sarkisova said. "The extra tough bouts were just good and will really help me prepare going into the remainder of the season."
Schiller said although he did not feel "badly" about the weekend, he still would have liked to see better results.
On top of Dumas and Sarkisova, foilists Camille Provencal and Devynn Patterson finished 54th and 65th respectively, epeeist
Kendrick Mooney finished 103rd and sabrist Chloe Grainger finished 50th. Freshman epeeist Rose Semmel finished 120th in the Division 1 event and 60th in the junior event.
Once again, the Cats' bright spot of the weekend was the performance of Dumas. After starting off her weekend finishing 40th in the Division 1 epée competition on Saturday, Dumas came back with an impressive 8th place finish on Monday in the junior event, beating Isabella Barna — the same fencer that eliminated her two days earlier — 15-12 to make it to the round of eight.
"I could have fenced better in the Division 1 competition," Dumas said. "But I feel I fenced better in the junior event."
This is just one of many successful performances for Dumas this year. After finishing the first half of her freshman season with top 20 finishes in every event she fenced in and a first-place finish at the USFA Burton Open, Dumas went undefeated in all her bouts a week ago at the Western Invitational.
"She's been really focused and fencing really hard and it is definitely showing," epée captain Kate Cavanaugh said. "It's good to see hard work pay off."
The Cats will only have a short time to think about the January North American Cup, however, as this Saturday NU will take part in the Philadelphia Invitational, followed by the NYU Invitational on Sunday. The events, which will include teams regularly in the top 5 nationally including the University of Pennsylvania, Temple, Columbia, Notre Dame and Ohio State, are the Cats' biggest test of the season.
"If we're going to have a good season, this is a weekend we're going to have to get through," Schiller said.
benjamintaylor2015@u.northwestern.edu
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