Penn fencing teams finish in top half of elite Ivy League men’s and women’s tournaments

The screams from the fencers and the cowbells from the stands almost overwhelmed the steel-on-steel twang of the weaponry at the Ivy League fencing championships at Providence, R.I., where the Penn men’s and women’s teams acquitted themselves nicely.

Most of the teams that participated in the Ivy championships are currently ranked in the top 15 inthe U.S. Fencing Coaches Association poll.

In the round-robin tournaments Feb. 12-13 on the Brown campus, the men’s team finished third behind champion Columbia and Harvard. The Quakers’ women’s team tied for fourth with Yale. Princeton won the women’s title.

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The Penn women (16-10) defeated Columbia, Brown and Cornell, and fell to Princeton, Harvard and Yale.

The Quakers men (12-12) also split the weekend with wins over Princeton and Yale, and losses to Columbia and Harvard.

Eight Quakers earned All-Ivy honors. Junior sabre fencer Amber White was named to the Ivy first team. In épée, junior Chloe Daniel made the first team while junior Jessica Liang was named to the second team.

On the men’s side, senior Eliot Herbst earned first-team honors in épée while senior Emon Daroian was placed on the second team. The second foil team included sophomores Blake Broszus and Bryce Louie, and freshman Eric Yu.

The NCAA championships only invite the top 24 fencers from across the nation at each weapon — men’s and women’s épée, foil and sabre. At the 2019 championships — the last time Ancient Eight schools competed — 51 of the 144 total fencers came from Ivy League schools, including seven from Penn.

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Because only individual fencers are invited to the tournament, nationals can be isolating for the athletes.

“Ivy fencing specifically is really special … because some of the top fencers are at Ivy League schools,” said women’s foil captain Grace Hao, a junior from Coppell, Texas. “It’s so exciting to be able to compete with top-tier athletes … The energy is crazy and it comes down a lot to team spirit.”

The fencing world is small. Outside of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, it is a fairly obscure sport.

There are 44 colleges with NCAA-level fencing teams, 28 of which are in Division I. Besides seven Ivy League programs, other elite universities such as Stanford, Duke, and Northwestern, have varsity fencing programs. Within that tight-knit community, fencers can transition from teammates in youth clubs to competitors at the collegiate level, or vice versa.

“Most people know each other or have mutual friends,” said sabre fencer Melanie Sporn, a sophomore from Harriton High School. “Seeing my former teammates at tournaments now and catching up, even for just a few minutes, is both comforting and nostalgic.”

The sport, often described as “physical chess,” requires fencers to find their rhythm while throwing off their competitors. With each bout comes a new opponent and a new strategy for the athletes to both dodge attacks and force their weapon at their targets.

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“I like that the challenge of every single fencer is different and you constantly have to be creative and strategic with your fencing,” said épée captain James Armstrong, a senior from Downingtown STEM Academy. “It’s a very mental sport.”

College is usually the first opportunity for fencers to compete on a team. Growing up, top fencers compete as individuals, even traveling around the country to boost their player rankings.

Sporn grew up playing basketball and field hockey before finding fencing, and falling in love with it.

“I personally really enjoyed the transfer from a more individual to team-oriented environment in college,” she said. “Regardless of the team aspect, when you step on the strip, you’re fencing alone. It’s up to the individual to put in the effort to win, but having a supportive team can make all the difference.”

Penn fencers will compete in the Temple Invitational next Sunday in their final appearance before the March 24-27 NCAA Tournament in Notre Dame, Ind.

Email Melanie Heller at melanie.heller@yale.edu.