Ramapo Sabre Squad Captures Gold at Cetrulo Tournament

The following report was contributed by  boys fencing head coach Paul Apostol: 

The Sabre Squad took first place at the Cetrulo as Charles Copti, Josh Chang, Adam Carcione and Alex Gorloff demonstrated excellent technique combined with powerful, aggressive fencing as they dueled to a 39-3 record, five wins more than their closest competitor, Columbia, which won the overall title.

The Cetrulo, the oldest, biggest and most prestigious statewide tournament had 49 high schools competing for the title. Ramapo sabreists, who won the title in 2006, 2007, and 2009 but came in second in 2010 and 2011, were eager to bring the trophy back to Ramapo and they achieved their goal. 

All the schools were placed into pools of 8 using seeding based on years of experience and national rating of each fencer. Adam Carcione, who started on the C-strip, went 7-0 with strong wins before being replaced by Alex Gorloff who similarly dispatched his two opponents with 5-0 and 5-1 scores. Charles Copti on the A-strip and Josh Chang on the B-strip produced an additional 13 wins.

The 8 schools with the best record from the first round of pools advanced to a final pool of 8, called the A-pool.

With a 20-1 record in the first pool, Ramapo easily advanced to the A-pool where our sabreists would face the strongest fencers in the state.

The A-pool was organized so that the schools with the best record in the first round would all face each other at the end of the 2^nd round.

Unfortunately, we lost a bout in the first and second matches but then recovered to win all the remaining bouts up until the sixth match where we would fence, Gov. Livingston, one of the toughest competitors. At that point, Gov. Livingston had four losses compared to our two so we needed to make sure that we did not give up more than two losses.

Instead of worrying about losing, our sabreists crushed their three Gov. Livingston opponents with scores of 5-2, 5-2 and 5-1, eliminating Gov. Livingston from contention.

Now our final match was against Columbia, the strongest team in the field, which had four losses compared to our two. We needed to win just one bout to win the competition. Adam Carcione on the C-strip fenced the first bout of the match. The bout started out as a seesaw battle with the fencers trading touches until the middle of the bout when Adam shifted into high gear and won the last two touches to win his bout 5-3 and clinch the sabre title for Ramapo. Neither Josh Chang nor Charles Copti needed to win their last bouts but they fenced ferociously to eliminate any doubt about Ramapo’s claim to the gold medal.

Each of them won their bouts 5-3 to extend our lead over Columbia from 3 wins to 5 wins.

With their 6^th place finish, Ramapo epeeists finished higher than any Ramapo epee squad in the last 10 years. This was an especially remarkable performance since their A-strip fencer, Scott Zellers, was out ill. Sam Judd fenced on the A-strip, Anthony Sclafani fenced on B and Michael Daly moved up to a starting position on the C-strip for the first time this season because of Scott’s absence. Against all odds, all three fenced extremely well producing 5-2 records for Sam and Anthony and a 5-1 record for Michael. There was a lot of downtime, as errors in score keeping had to be resolved before we knew if our 16-5 record was good enough for a promotion to the A-pool. After around an hour of suspenseful waiting, we finally learned that we had made it.

In the final round Sam Judd fenced very well producing a 4-3 record against the strongest epeeists in the state. Michael Daly continued to make contributions fencing his C-strip opponents and fought to a 3-4 record.

Unfortunately, Anthony Sclafani developed a massive blister on his left foot, a common occurrence with fencers, which required medical attention that kept him out of action for two bouts while Edward Lim stepped in to substitute for him. This unsettling turn of events resulted in the B-strip producing only a 1-6 record. Considering the handicaps they faced, our epeeists did an excellent job.

In foil, we decided to “stack,” changing the usual order by putting our strongest fencer on the B-strip, our next strongest fencer on the C-strip and our third strongest fencer on the A-strip in an effort to gain more victories on the B and C strips but concede the A-strip.

Despite this strategy, we were unable to gain the traction we needed for a strong finish.

As expected, we had no victories on the A-strip. Tyler Clarke came through with 5 victories on the C strip but with just one victory from the B strip our 6-15 record in the first round relegated us to the E-pool in the second round, battling for a finish between 34^th and 42^nd. In the second round, Tyler on the C-strip continued to fence strongly and produced a 5-1 record. Tanner Frank settled down and started fencing very well to produce a 6-0 record. On the A-strip Daniel Kim entered the match in the third round and produced a 3-1 record.

Their very good 14-4 record placed them at the top of their pool but unfortunately, their 34^th place finish was the highest they could place given their first round performance.

Everyone on the team deserves thanks for the excellent effort they made during this arduous competition where the bus did not return the team to Ramapo until 10 p.m. We also need to acknowledge the unsung efforts of those team members who took on the difficult job of squad manager and worked tirelessly to keep score, sign score sheets, shepherd the fencers to their next assigned strip and generally look out for the welfare of the fencers. Matt Rizzo, Eric Sloezen, Tim Lee and John Lim did outstanding jobs for which the team thanks them.

Our next dual meet is away at Passaic Valley, Tuesday, Jan. 10, at 4:15 p.m. We are likely to make extensive substitutions at this meet, so if you have not had a chance to see your son fence yet, this will be a good opportunity.

Contact Coach Paul Apostol at pdapostol@optonline.net or 201-891-6208.

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