Shoehorned among the snowstorms, the rescheduled match between Rye Country Day and their fencing counterparts from Riverdale’s Horace Mann School finally took place Saturday, February 7.
By Mitch Silver
Shoehorned among the snowstorms, the rescheduled match between Rye Country Day and their fencing counterparts from Riverdale’s Horace Mann School finally took place Saturday, February 7. Because the visiting Lions did not field a Girls’ sabre team, the meet consisted of Boys’ foil, epée, and sabre and Girls’ foil and epée. The JV competed against The Avenues School.
Rye Country Day Coach Joe Rue was confident, if not exactly certain, of the outcome going in. “Our program is having a good year with a combined record of 52 victories and 26 defeats. Our girls foil team is incredibly strong, with 13 wins and one loss.”
Sure enough, the team of Emma Chu, Hanna Kopits, Gabriela Vascimini, and Cynthia Luo foiled their counterparts by seven bouts to two, with a total of 36 touches given and 21 received. It was closer in Epée, with the Wildcat girls winning by 5-4. Touches were 37-30.
In Boys’ foil, Eric Duarte, Harrison Lee, Kevin Collado, and Edward Kim put Horace Mann to the sword, sweeping the board and taking only 10 total touches while dishing out 90. Boys epée was also one-sided, with Marco Bohorquez, John Ellis, Naropa Perez, and J.J. Shulman taking six of the nine bouts and a 36-29 advantage in touches.
Only in sabre did Horace Mann edge out the boys from Rye, 5 bouts to 4 and 31-29 touches administered.
In the final bout of the afternoon, JV fencer Amanda Cutler took on a boy from The Avenues. Coach Rue explained. “Amanda is new to fencing. Since their school didn’t bring a Girls’ JV, we asked if it would be okay to give Amanda some experience and they were very accommodating. Fencing is like that; everyone shows really positive spirit.”
All the other competitors had finished their bouts and gathered around to cheer Amanda on.
The team travels to Hackley on February 22 for the next major meet of the winter season. Weather permitting.
