The fencing team started the second semester with a strong outing at the Philadelphia Invitational last Sunday. Cornell emerged, 4-2, with wins over North Carolina, Johns Hopkins, Sacred Heart and Drew University at the invitational, which was held at Temple. Cornell only lost to the host Owls and to the fencers from Duke. 

Following its recent success, the foil team led the way for the Red with a 43-11 record for the day. The other squads also had great results by finishing the day with winning records as the sabre squad had a 30-24 record while the epee squad went 28-26. The foil squad members all finished with a winning record, with junior Rebecca Hirschfeld leading the team with a 15-3 record. Freshmen fencers Christine McIntosh and April Whitney completed the foil squad with 13-4 and 12-4 finishes, respectively. Sophomore epee Addy McDonnell led the epee squad with an 11-4 record and sophomore captain sabre Beverly Yang led the sabre squad with a 13-4 finish.

The Red has worked hard for these positive results and much of it has come from the team’s new mentality for the season.

“Definitely one of the things that helps the team this season is the work attitude and the work ethic,” Yang said. “We trained really hard and even came back one week early to get some extra practice time. I can really feel the team getting stronger and closer as a result.”

“Coming back early from the break really helped since we put some things together for this tournament,” added senior captain Analise Peleggi. “Everyone’s been working hard to help each other.”

Not only that, but the team this year also features many strong fencers of different styles.

 “We had great results from the younger fencers,” Peleggi said.

However, even with the recent success, the team has still dropped a couple matches. These have come as a result of strong opponents and small adjustments that are needed. 

“The losses that we had were tough and we fought hard,” Yang said. “At the end of the day, the teams were stronger than us.”

“We learned a lot this past tournament,” Peleggi said. “Everyone has something to work on; something like footwork or timing. We all help each other with drills.”

Overall though, there are good vibes throughout the team and the Red is ready to step up in the future.

“We don’t have any major weaknesses and we just need to work on refining our form and technique,” Yang said. “We’re at a high level right now and these small things might push us over the top.”