This weekend the fencing team wrapped up our season with our state individual tournament. The day began with fencers being sorted into pools based on their seeding.
- Eastman had a challenging pool of mostly fencers from the other conference, meaning there were no notes for us to go from. He still did his best and was determined to have a good time.
- Scott’s first bout with filled with equipment issues – somehow he got every piece of gear we have that needed just a little bit of maintenance, but this unfortunately resulted in some inspection failures and a few points awarded to his opponent due to cards. This gave me a good stack of gear afterwards to do some on-the-spot repairs. After this, though, the rest was smooth sailing and he ended with only one loss, placing second in his pool.
- Ellis faced some familiar opponents and ended with 2 victories and 3 defeats, though each defeat was by a small margin with two of them being by only one point. His determination definitely paid off!
- Wadsworth’s straight-forward approach served him well and came in second in his pool, still putting up some points on the one opponent to beat him and determined to do his best.
After pools we moved to the direct elimination tableau. Scott and Wadsworth both placed high enough to earn byes for the first round. Ellis and Eastman had the unfortunate luck of being paired against each other first. While it’s always nice to know somebody from our team will progress it also means another will be eliminated. Direct elimination bouts are to 15 points instead of the normal 5, making it as much of a test of endurance as skill. While Ellis initially started ahead as they moved into the second round Eastman’s slow and steady pace helped him ultimately win 15-12. Unfortunately, Eastman’s second bout was against a very quick fencer and he was eliminated.
Wadsworth faced a familiar opponent in his direct elimination bout. He was first behind 9-1 before figuring out what he needed to do to score and quickly rebounded and earned multiple points in quick succession. Unfortunately, he had a lot of ground to make up and that combined with complications and delays due to equipment issues on his opponent’s side made that a challenge. He ultimately was eliminated 15-13 but made a great fight and came in 9th place for the day, an impressive result.
Scott had an easy victory in his first DE pairing, coming out ahead 15-8. This sent him to the top 8 – a first for Hargrave. He then faced a very challenging opponent from our league, and while he put up a good fight, lost 15-3 but came away with notes for next year and determination to improve.
Last year, all hargrave competitors placed around the middle in the rankings. This year we had two well into the top half with Wadsworth finishing in 9th place and Scott in 6th. Hargrave fencers are slowly getting closer to the podium and we are looking forward to seeing what we can achieve next year.
On behalf of the team, thank you all for your support and encouragement this year.
