The Brandeis University fencing teams continued their strong starts to the season with impressive showings at the first meet of the Northeast Fencing Conference. Both the women’s and men’s teams dominated their competition, as the women came away with a 6-1 record and the men a 5-0 mark against other top college teams from the region. 

The women’s team followed up strong individual performances at the New England Fall Collegiate Championships two weeks ago, with tremendous team success in this weekend’s round robin competition. Overall, the Judges defeated Smith College (19-8), Boston University (15-12), Sacred Heart University (15-12), University of Massachusetts-Amherst (21-6), the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (15-12) and University of New Hampshire (23-4) before dropping their final match of the tournament 13-14 to Wellesley College. On the heels of her gold medal in foil, Joanne Carminucci ’19 led women’s foil to victories against every team during the seven round tourney, highlighted by 9-0 shutouts against BU, UMass and UNH. Foils Jessica Gets ’20, Renee Pite ’19 and New England Fall Collegiate Championship semifinalist Hannah Mui ’20 also had big days, contributing in every match to the foil squad’s commanding performance. The epee fencers also put together a successful day, winning six of seven matches on the day. Epee Liz Feller ’18, who also reached the semifinals at the Championship earlier this month, led the charge for this group and continued her strong season as a dependable victory in nearly all of her bouts. The zenith of the squad’s day was an 8-1 victory over UNH, with its only loss coming against BU. Saber had a tough outing, dropping five of seven for the tourney. Many of these were close matches decided in the final bouts, including 4-5 losses to MIT, BU and Smith. The group competed hard, with impressive bout wins from first-year saber Devon Brown ’21. Led by senior saber Laura Broffman ’18, the group will look to turn the tables on these teams when they meet again in January. 

The men’s fencing team also continued its early season success with a similarly dominating performance on Saturday. The Judges ended the day without a blemish on their record, defeating BU (24-3), Sacred Heart (17-10), UMass (19-8), MIT (16-11) and UNH (26-1).  Foil Ian Quin ’20 followed up his top finish at the Championships earlier this month by leading men’s foil to near perfection. The squad dropped only five total bouts on the day, going a perfect 5-0 in matches. Foil Guillermo Narvaez ’18 had a big day for the Judges, helping them to a shutout of BU in their first match of the day. Men’s epee had a difficult day, ending the round robin with a 2-3 record. The group started strong by defeating BU 6-3 but then dropped the majority of their bouts in their next three matches to Sacred Heart, UMass and MIT. They were able to end with a win however, ceding only one bout to UNH in an impressive 8-1 victory. Epee Hunter Stusnick ’18 had a number of strong showings, winning bouts in three of the four matches he participated in. The men’s saber team ensured the five overall wins for the Judges, emerging victorious in all matches and besting their foil teammates by losing only four bouts on the day. With sabers Leon Rotenstein ’20 and Garrett Tordo ’21 fencing with the confidence from their semifinals appearances weeks ago, the team thoroughly rolled through its competition. 

With this early season momentum, the Judges appear well on their way toward another successful year.