On the weekend of November 2-3, Bradley University Fencing Club participated at Northwestern's Duals. This was our first time competing in the Midwest Fencing Conference.
Sunday's events were much more intense than Saturday's.
On Saturday, partial squads moved the bouts much faster and there was plenty of downtime for our group in between rounds. All of the schools present on Sunday brought full men's squads, which meant more bouts for each of our fencers and much less downtime for everyone, including refs and coaches. The referees were also beginning to unravel after many hours of dealing with college fencers. At one point, a referee began calling right-of-way in one of our epee bouts.
We also had to deal with more injuries: our men's foil captain, Alex, had guards smashed into his weapon hand three times, as well as a flick that landed on the back of his head. Peter (men's sabre) was cut on his back hand. Everything was much more aggressive than the day before. The women had been happy to just be there to compete; the men were out for blood.
As with the women's teams, the day started off slow but improved. All of our men were learning a lot from competing, especially our sabre team, when it came to strategy, strengths, and weaknesses. Their footwork got better and their actions were cleaner than the beginning of the day. Referees who watched us throughout the day made comments about how they were learning. At the end of the day, two of our completely new sabre fencers even won against a fencer from the Northwestern men's club, which was worth celebrating.
It was a fantastic experience, and again, while we lost everything, .we did so much better than expected considering half of our fencer had never competed, and had only started fencing this August.
Annamaria Lu
BUFC President '13-'14
Women's Epee
Sunday's events were much more intense than Saturday's.
On Saturday, partial squads moved the bouts much faster and there was plenty of downtime for our group in between rounds. All of the schools present on Sunday brought full men's squads, which meant more bouts for each of our fencers and much less downtime for everyone, including refs and coaches. The referees were also beginning to unravel after many hours of dealing with college fencers. At one point, a referee began calling right-of-way in one of our epee bouts.
We also had to deal with more injuries: our men's foil captain, Alex, had guards smashed into his weapon hand three times, as well as a flick that landed on the back of his head. Peter (men's sabre) was cut on his back hand. Everything was much more aggressive than the day before. The women had been happy to just be there to compete; the men were out for blood.
As with the women's teams, the day started off slow but improved. All of our men were learning a lot from competing, especially our sabre team, when it came to strategy, strengths, and weaknesses. Their footwork got better and their actions were cleaner than the beginning of the day. Referees who watched us throughout the day made comments about how they were learning. At the end of the day, two of our completely new sabre fencers even won against a fencer from the Northwestern men's club, which was worth celebrating.
It was a fantastic experience, and again, while we lost everything, .we did so much better than expected considering half of our fencer had never competed, and had only started fencing this August.
Annamaria Lu
BUFC President '13-'14
Women's Epee