Ramapo Fencers Achieve at NJ Tournament

The Frosh-Soph Fencing Tournament used to be held on a statewide basis until it got so big that it became unmanageable. Then, starting in 2009, the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association, the governing body for fencing, asked each of the regions in the state to run the tournament on a regional basis.

Every year since then the Bergen-Passaic Fencing League has selected Ramapo to run the tournament. It is now considered by most to be the best-run tournament in the state. This year, all 72 medals were awarded and everyone was on their way out the door by 3 p.m. compared with many recent tournaments with fewer fencers held elsewhere that did not end until 10 p.m.

Ramapo fencers brought home many of the medals that were awarded to the top six finalists in each of the six categories for boys fencing; freshman sabre, foil and epee plus sophomore sabre, foil and epee.

Gerry Stamatelatos won the gold in the freshman epee competition beating out top six competitors from Passaic Valley, Don Bosco and Teaneck.

In sophomore epee Matt Rizzo, Adam Polevoy, and John Lim captured the third, fourth and fifth places in their competition.

Adam Carcione and Daniel Carione won gold and silver in the sophomore sabre event. Josh Pokorny and JJ Marcus finished sixth and seventh in the same event. 

A sad occurrence in this event was that one of the fencers was so upset by his zero to five loss to Adam that he packed up his equipment and withdrew from the competition. Every Ramapo fencer eventually loses bouts in dual meets and/or tournaments.  What we try to instill in them is that they need to lose with dignity and learn from their loss so that they can be a better fencer in their next meet.

Tommy Sheng fenced strongly in a field of 15 freshmen foilists and earned a bronze medal for his third place finish. Patrick Pinney, who started fencing only two months ago, managed an eleventh place finish, a great result given his short period of training.

In sophomore foil Jacob Tatz finished fourth, Nick Bonini finished fifth, Eric Sloezen finished seventh, and John DeFalco finished eleventh in one of the largest categories.

Congratulations to all who fenced hard and accomplished great results. 

Ramapo’s prior meets against: Nyack 28-1 (14-1), Fair Lawn 23-4 (14-2), Passaic Valley 16-11 (14-7), Bernards 15-12 (14-12), Columbia 11-16 (8-14), Don Bosco 13-14 (12-14), Pompton Lakes 17-10 (14-5), Northern Highlands 19-8 (14-4), Indian Hills 15-12 (14-5),  Bergen Tech 19-8 (14-3), W. Milford 18-9 (14-6)

State Championship meets against: Pingry 16-11 (14-10).

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