Cape Fear Fencing Association

 

 

Herman informed me that April 14th is the Azalea Festival Parade date.  That means parking near St. Mary will be practically impossible.  Choices for doing a youth meet that day are start it in the afternoon, after the parade.  Parking will still be difficult.  Or canceling it.  Unfortunately there are not any other free Saturdays in April.  Thoughts?

pax vobiscum,

 

At the NAC in Baltimore, Nicole Milewski had a good weekend.  On Friday, in the Y-14, she went 6-0 in her pool and was the number 8 seed in the DE.  She won her first three DEs.  Unfortunately the 8 vs 9 match up in the 16 was with an A who also was undefeated in the pools and went on to finish 3rd.  Nicole finished 10th out of 149.  That should earn her a slew of National points.  The next day was the Div III event, meaning that no one higher than a D (at the time you enter) is allowed in.  In some ways this can be the toughest event in fencing, harder than higher level events where everyone is a solid fencer with reasonably good basics.  You get the up and comers (like Nicole) who are on their way to bigger and better things, you get wily old veterans who may have lost a step but are still dangerous, you get brand new fencers still figuring out which end you hold; you get people who are A fencers in a different weapon, and you can get “hackers,” people who have one good or weird move that can be very hard to figure out in one bout.  Nicole went 4-2 in her pool but had one of the other unusual Div. III issues.  International, generally Canadian, fencers can enter these events.  If they have not fenced in the US enough to get a rating, they are listed as U rated fencers.  The woman she fenced, from Canada, would not have been allowed to fence based on her Canadian rating, but was still a U in the United States.  In her DEs, Nicole first got a woman who fenced in the “knife fighter” position a lot, but she won that one in priority.  Unfortunately, the next woman she faced was sort of a combination of Herman and Oliver, who then went on to defeat the Canadian from Nicole’s pool and ended up in 8th.  Nicole finished 39 out of 119, which is good enough to qualify her for the Div III National Championships.  I would say we have a number of people who should start looking to try the NAC events next year, either as the age group events or at the Div. II (C and under) or Div III level.  A lot does depend on the location, but in recent years Baltimore or Richmond have seemed to always get at least one of these events.

I’ll be back, UNCW is back, and so this week will be a standard week of fencing at the club, Topsail, and Camp Lejeune.

 

Yesterday Phil Nazarro and Liam Coyle represented the Southeastern Cardinals in the Homeschool League Team Championships.  They fenced well, but were a person down, as teams are actually three people.  They did beat New Bern, the other team fencing one person down, in a back and forth 45-44 match.  Unfortunately they couldn’t overcome the disadvantage against Twin City (who won the championship) or Oak Ridge.

This week will be unusual due to UNCW’s Spring Break and the Baltimore NAC.  No UNCW practice at Trask Monday night.  Our next evening class will start Tuesday night at 6:30 pm and runs for 12 sessions on Tu/Th.  If anyone wants to come in Wednesday night for practice, let me know ASAP.  Otherwise no practice Wednesday after 6:30 pm as the UNCW students are away.  On Thursday, I will be leaving for Baltimore after the afterschool session.  Brendan will be in by 7:45 pm to run the evening open session, but the evening class will not meet. No Topsail or Camp Lejeune classes this week.

 

It was a good day for Wilmington at the NCHSFL individuals in Greensboro yesterday.  These are still done in the old style of fencing pools, then a cut, then another round of pools, another cut etc.  It means the you have to keep fencing better as the day goes on, but you won’t be eliminated if you have a total brain freeze in one match.  The winner is the person who has enough left and comes out ahead in the pool in that final round.  Both of the high school events (men’s and women’s foil) in which we had entrants went for 5 rounds.  In men’s foil we had two Hoggard fencers.  Andrew Whitehead finished 26th of the 42 competitors. That means he was eliminated in the first round as they did a hard cut to 24, but as he has just been competing a few months, that was still a very solid result.  Will Golder, made it a bit farther, getting to the finals and finishing third overall, which was excellent, especially considering he is a freshman.  On the women’s side from Hoggard, Cammy Herbert fenced the best she has all year and made it into the third round.  She finished 14/31 overall.  The Ashley women had Katelyn Guthrie also make the third round and finish 17th.  Both Cammy and Katelyn just started fencing this year.  Emma Graf saved her best fencing for the final round and went undefeated, becoming the women’s champion for the NCHSFL for 2018.  Will and Emma, by reason of making the final pools, are also accorded All-State honors.  Congratulations to everyone.

This week should be a totally regular week of practice.

 

Another busy weekend with a number of good results for CFFA fencers.

To start with, on Friday night, Catherine Shin of UNCW scared away all the other women at Mid-South’s Grand Open tournament.  She had to fence with the men, and won her first DE pretty easily.  That got her a match with number one seed Stephen Pashby.  She finished 8th.  The next day in the same event, Kim Phillips tied for third out of an A1 event.

On Saturday, a number of our fencers went to the Holy City Open in Charleston, South Carolina.  In their foil, Will Golder had a solid 1st round, crushed his first two DEs, then defeated the B rated number 1 seed.  He lost 11-15 in the finals to Luke Kinney (no relation to Mike).  That earns Will his D18.  Our epeeists also did well.  Kenyatta Sanford tied for 3rd in the C rated event and earns her D18.  The person she tied with was Robert Thomas, who re-earns his D18.  Rounding out the top 8 was Mike Kinney, who earns an E18.  Congrats to all.

Last and not least a number of local fencers went to the NCFL seeding event in Apex.  Andrew Whitehead, Paul Corpening, and Cammy Herbert, all of Hoggard, lost their first DEs.  Emma Graf and Katelyn Guthrie of Ashley both won their first DE, but lost their second.  All of them are qualified for the finals in Greensboro on the 24th.

 

Congrats to all the Eagles fans.

Per usual, there was a lot of fencing going on this weekend.  On the homeschool front, Phil Nazzaro and Liam Coyle represented Southeastern in Oak Ridge.  We borrowed one of the Oak Ridge fencers to fill out the team and they went 3-0.  They beat New Bern and Twin City 45-31 and Oak Ridge 45-29.

At the RYC in Apex, on Saturday Will Golder went 3-3 in his pool for Y-14 men, won his first DE, but then lost the second to the number one seed and finished 13th out of 31.  Jackson Jones in his first USA Fencing competition lost a close first DE 8-10 to finish his day in the Y-10 mixed foil.  On Sunday, Nicole Milewski went 5-1 in her pool of Y-14 women’s epee.  She got her revenge for the one loss in the gold medal match, winning 15-13.

 

Wrightsville Beach Magazine has done a nice article about fencing in Wilmington.  You can access it through the link: http://www.wrightsvillebeachmagazine.com/flash/2018-2/#/20/

I have a few hard copies at the club for those who want one for a scrapbook.

Herman is looking to put together an order this week, so get us what you need.  Additionally, 6 month dues are due on Feb 1 or thereabouts.

Yesterday, Robert Thomas went out to the epee event in Charlotte.  He went 3-3 in his pool and won his first DE.  He then succumbed to Lars Hansen, the A from Fayetteville.

I went up to Chapel Hill and refereed the NCFL team event.  For the men, it was Research Triangle 1st, Bishop 2nd, and Chapel Hill 3rd.  For the women, it was Chapel Hill 1st, Orange 2nd, and Salem 3rd.

Practice will be getting more toward normal this week as UNCW will start coming down on Wednesday nights.  Friday is a new class at Camp Lejeune.