The St. John’s fencing team made their way out to Waltham, Mass. this past weekend for the Brandeis Invitational and took home five victories for both the men’s and women’s sides, for a final record of 10-2. Both teams only fell to Yale but were able to take down Brandeis, MIT, Brown, Cornell and Boston College.
Fares Ferjani, Karolina Cieslar and Karolina Kaleta all had themselves perfect days for the Johnnies, ending in 18-0 records all around in saber competitions. The men’s saber put on the strongest performance with 44 wins on the day from Ferjani, Ben Natanzon, Dalton Walker and Sal Centanni. They went 6-0 for the Red Storm.
Maxime Tarasiewicz went 13-5 on the day in the foil competition. The men’s foils were the only groups that lost on the day as a whole, but only by two. Men’s epee took home a resounding win in their group, with Ivan Zagoruiko finishing 14-1 and Nathan Vaysberg finishing 11-7.
The women’s saber had themselves a spectacular day as the Cieslar and Kaleta were the only two to compete and went 18-0 each, for a final for women’s saber of 36-18. Kasia Lachman and Arianna Pappone were successful in the women’s foil, each going 16-2. For the women’s epee, Andrea Rizzi and Dominique Tannous went 15-3 and 14-4 respectively to lead their group to victory as well.
Their resounding success should help build confidence to carry over into their next invitational at home in January. The team’s next competition will be from Dec. 14-17 at the December North American Cup in Ohio.
