Sunday, February 9th, was the Massachusetts State Championships for fencing at Buckingham, Browne and Nichols. The CC team was one of 10 teams per gender (11 teams overall) competing in the championship. It was a great ended to a much improved season.
Good news came on Saturday night when the schedule was posted and CC had a very favorable schedule, fencing the weaker schools first and then finishing with the harder. This gave the team a chance to get everything working, build some confidence. The Men’s Team had beaten every team in the championship during the season. Unfortunately, they had also lost to a few of them. The Women’s Team had beaten every team except Dana Hall but had also dropped to a few. The format for the Championships is challenging, 1/3 of a regular meet agains every school in the team phase of the tournament. Then 12 athletes are promoted to the individual tournament where they fence in two pools of 6 and then a final of 6. Each round a fencer only gets one bout and each round takes between 30 - 45 minutes so it can be an exhausting day.
Both teams started off strong against Boston University Academy in the first round winning 8-1 on both men’s and women’s putting both teams in 1st place for the 3 weapon championships and the 6 weapon overall title.
Find out what's happening in Concordfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
The second round they fenced Northampton. The Men’s team won 7-2 and the Women’s team won 6-3. After the 2nd round the Men’s team was still in first and the Women’s Team had slipped to 2nd behind Dana Hall by 1 bout.
The third round was the International School of Boston. ISB only had 1 Women’s Sabre fencer and no Men’s Sabre fencers. The Men’s and Women’s Team each won 6-3.
Find out what's happening in Concordfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
The 4th round was with Boston Latin who is new the to league last year. CC had not fenced them during the season and didn’t know what to expect. The Men won 5-4 and the Women 6-3. At the end of the round the Men team had slipped behind BB&N by 2 points, Dana Hall had increase their lead to 4 but CC was still ahead in the 6 weapon by 2 points.
The 5th round was Bishop Feehan. The Men won 6-3 and the Women lost 3-6. After this round the Men had stayed 2 bouts behind BB&N but the Women fell to 3rd behind Dana Hall and BB&N. BB&N pulled into the lead in the 6 weapon by 4 points.
The 6th round was Commonwealth School. The Men won 5-4 and the Women won 7-2. This close round allowed SJP to move ahead putting the CC Men’s team in 3rd and the Women’s team also stayed in 3rd. The 6 weapon had CC in second 6 points behind BB&N.
The 7th round was Beaver Country Day School. The Men won 6-3 and he Women lost 4-5. The Men held on to 3rd, 5 bouts out of first place but the Women saw Bishop Feehan barely slip past, even on victories, and indicators (touches scored - touches received) but ahead by 5 touches scored. In the 6 weapon BB&N increased their lead to 9 points over 2nd place CC.
The 8th round was BB&N. This was a chance for CC to start making a comeback because every win for CC prevented a win for BB&N. After this round, the Men were in 3rd by 6 points to SJP and behind 2nd place BB&N by 3 points. The Women were in 4th place, 10 points behind now unreachable Dana Hall and 3 behind Bishop Feehan in 3rd. BB&N stayed 9 points ahead in the 6 weapon.
The 9th round was with SJP for the Men and Dana Hall for the Women. Since these are the three foundation programs that have been fencing each other since the early 70s, it is always the final round. The Women’s team lost 0-9 to Dana Hall and finished in 4th. Mackenzie King ’16 coming the closest in taking a win from Dana with a 4-5 loss. The Men’s team needed 6 wins to catch SJP. Despite a strong effort from the CC team, including a surprise win from Luc Mundel ’15 over SJP #1 Rory Burke ’14, the CC team was only able to get 4 wins from the prep. When the round was complete. SJP and BB&N were in a tie for first, SJP went on to win the tie breaker and CC Men had to settle for 3rd. In the 6 weapon BB&N added another 10 wins to their lead and CC finished 2nd.
The Men’s Foil Squad came in 2nd and was the only squad to medal but the other squads were close behind with 2 4ths, a 5th and a 6th.
9 CC Fencers went on to fence in the individual - Men’s Sabre - Captain Jacob Hession-Kunz ’14, Men’s Foil - Trey Powers ’15, Max Krims ’15, and Jacob Golson ’16, Men’s Epee - Luc Mundel ’16, Womens’ Sabre - Cynthia Putnam ’15 and Lucy Hill ’16, Women’s Foil - Captain Carolyn Lu ’14 and Natalie Ma ’16. Of those - Powers, Golson, Hession-Kunz, Putnam and Lu made the finals finishing - Hession-Kunz - Silver, Lu - 4th, Powers - 4th, Putnam - 6th and Golson - 6th.
Other notable performances were put on by 4 first year fencers - Sarah Packard ’14, Mackenzie King - 16, Jeremy Wilson - 16, and Claire Dettelbach ’17. These fencers all started this year and really stepped up to take on starting positions at States. Three will be returning next year, hopefully better or stronger.
Complete results can be found at www.prisedefer.com/results/Tournaments/MAHSStateChamps.htm
This season has been seen an amazing change in the team. In December, they were a very young team, lots of new fencers, they didn’t know how to pull together to win a meet and it looked like they were on a road to a 50/50 season. Somehow, this team pulled together to become one of the most connected teams in 15 years. The schedule was very demanding and was loaded with a lot of competitions at the end of the season. The team rose to the challenge and then some. This team showed experience that many teams that are full of seniors never show. If this team can make that big a change in such a short amount of time, the sky is the limit for next year.
The day after the State Championships, the team had last practice of the season. Captains were elected for next season. Congratulations to Cynthia Putnam, Kevin Fan and Trey Powers on being elected to lead the team into their 50th season!
