Ramapo Defeats Bergen Tech 15-12 (14-11) in First Round of State Championship

Editor's note: Paul Apostol is the coach of the boys fencing team at Ramapo High School.

The meet started predictably…Ramapo’s Sabreists who finished first in the District Championship swept their three first round bouts while Bergen Tech’s foilists who finished 2^nd in Districts swept their first three bouts. Ramapo was counting on their epeeists (2^nd in Districts) to tilt the meet in Ramapo’s favor by defeating Bergen Tech’s squad (6^th in Districts) and the epeeists delivered with a first round sweep of their three bouts to put the first round score at 6-3, Ramapo.

The second round started off as a repeat of the first round …three sabre wins for Ramapo and three foil wins for Bergen Tech. But then Bergen Tech epee fencers turned the tables by besting Ramapo’s epeeists 2-1. Suddenly the match started to get close with the score at the end of the second round, 10-8 Ramapo.

Then the first major surprise of the meet, a distinctly unpleasant one, occurred when Ramapo lost one of its third round sabre bouts on a disputed call. Given the way Tech’s foilists were manhandling our squad and the apparent resurgence of their epeeists things were starting to look ominous.

But then the second major surprise of the meet happened when Ramapo foilist Patrick Lin got up to fence Eddie Kim, who had allowed only one touch to be scored against him in his first two bouts. Unintimidated, Patrick raced to a 4-0 lead over Tech’s Kim.

All of a sudden, it looked like Patrick might offset the unexpected Ramapo sabre loss. However, one by one, Kim clawed his way back to a 4-4 tie as Patrick’s attacks and ripostes kept missing. Finally, Patrick landed a counterattack to win the bout and put Ramapo back in a position to win the meet.

Tech won the next two foil bouts to bring the score to 13-11 Ramapo, with the burden of winning the decisive 14^th win left to the epeeists. Epeeist Scott Zellers, who was 2-0 up to this point, took the strip and fenced with total confidence to defeat his opponent 5-1 and clinch the meet at 14-11.

The Ramapo sabre squad went 8-1 as juniors Charles Copti and Josh Chang both went 3-0 while senior Gaspar Lesznik added another two victories. All three fenced extremely well.

Ramapo epeeists went 6-3 as sophomore Scott Zellers dominated his opponents with 5-1, 5-1, and 5-2 bouts for a clean 3-0 sweep. Sophomore Sam Judd added two victories and senior Kevin Kim contributed one victory.

Ramapo foilists had a disappointing 1-8 performance against a much stronger Bergen Tech squad but one of the highlights of the meet was Patrick Lin’s third round victory which swung the momentum back in Ramapo’s favor.

Ramapo’s next meet is this Friday, away at Bergen Tech. This is the originally scheduled dual meet in the Bergen-Passaic League calendar. Tonight’s outcome does not count towards the Bergen-Passaic Championship. Both Bergen Tech and Ramapo will enter the meet with undefeated records in League competition. The winner will be the Bergen Passaic League Champion. Ramapo has won the League Championship for the last five years in a row. Given the closeness of tonight’s meet, this will be a difficult match.