Before I get into the past two week-ends’ results, I have to tip my point to veteran Jim Gillaspy who upset a higher rated fencer for the win in WRFS’s Wild Turkey Div III Epee applying age and treachery successfully against his younger opponents. Damien Doser of UGA took gold in Div III Saber, upsetting Georgia Southern’s Ben Callahan (who split bronze with Emily Robey-Phillips) and WRFS’ Stephen Taylor settled for silver. WRFS’ Khaurana siblings took gold and silver in Y10 Foil, and their club mate Nate Hellier wore bronze home. In Y-12 and Y-12/Y-10 Foil ACN’s Caleb Morrison was the one to beat, but no one did. AFC’s Nathan Moore took silver twice in both events. Sarin Khaurana took bronze in the combined event and AFC’s Evan Brown split bronze with WRFS’ Garrett Pfabein in Y-12.

Rome’s Bent Blade Open

Unrated Epee medalists: left to right: Harrison Saylor 3rd, Zane
Bertoli 3rd, Caleb Scott 2nd, and Ross Collins 1st.

Saturday was sweet for Rome’s Ross Collins, so much so that he memorialized the occasion in photography; he is the little guy with the big grin taking first and an E rating in Unrated Epee. He went on to 2nd and a C rating in the open! AFC’s Daniel Ashkeboussi gave Ross his only pool loss. AFC’s Charles Shapiro almost stopped him in the round of 8 14-15, but he survived to take out AFC’s Mary Tung in the final four. Mary split bronze with NGFC’s Craig Shaffren who had taken Daniel out but got stopped by Alabama’s A-rated Phoebe Caldwell, against whom Ross’ luck finally ran out. Not bad for a short guy who started the day an unrated fencer.

The Second Annual Stas Krivosheev Memorial Tournament

Although we’ve been in the new building for a couple of years now, its still one heck of a sight to walk into an 18 strip facility, especially when it’s going full tilt boogie. Maestro Burdan is positively Teutonic about keeping the place looking good. It must be the only venue in the world where you can’t take even a water bottle onto the wood. Maestro doesn’t relent for visitors. The special touch of the day was the buffet catered by fencing moms; the menu had a Russian theme in honor of Stas – Russian meat and apple pie, soufflés, casseroles, and even caviar! Stas’ parents were present too, helping out of course, Tatiana with administration, Oleg with direction. I had to leave at 5:30 just after the open pools were completed (grueling 9 fencer pools, I was Maestro’s score keeper. He kept things going so quickly that I made two major errors on the score sheet. Fencers! Always check your score sheet before signing. Fortunately the fencers caught my errors and disaster was averted.)

I showed up in time to see the Y-10 begin. I usually enjoy watching the kids, there are almost always a few who already show the knack, and Sunday was no exception. I already knew Nellya’s Zach Ward and Henry Fisher (who came in second and third), but this was my first time to see Alabama’s Kelly Jiang in action. She and Nellya’s Alex Tapp won all their pool bouts in the first round. Henry finished second in his pool in the first round, but Nellya’s Erwin Kai out pointed Zach. In the second round, a pool of nine, Alex beat Zach, but, apart from an upset loss to Nellya’s Sarah Cunningham (Ian’s little sister), no one else, including Kelly, did; good enough for silver. For her part, Kelly beat everyone except Zach, securing gold. Henry also won six, but Zach’s indicators were better so he settled for bronze.

I was looking forward to Y-12 to see national gold medalist Skyla Powers in action. My Brazilian nutty buddy Carlos, who sees these kids practice three times a week, agreed that you’d never guess from practice what these kids are capable of in competition. Competition is to practice, as practice is to drills. I was concerned that Kelly might spoil the party, which she nearly did. Skyla won all her bouts, but Alabama’s Alistair Delchamps won all his, and seeded first on indicators. Kelley lost one bout in her pool to Nellya’s Joshua Marsh (whose round-house slashes went right through her parries), somehow, however, Nellya’s Haley Fisher was able to stop him 5-2. Third seed went to Nellya’s Noa Allen who had been in Alistair’s pool and was beat only by him.

Haley won her first DE, but had the bad luck to be paired with 1st seed Alistair for her second one. Meanwhile Nellya’s Ben Heller, who’d seeded 12th, was upsetting everyone, starting with 5th seed Luke Tassopoulos (Nellya), then the aforementioned Joshua Marsh, and even 1st seed Alistair. So what happened to Kelly? Skyla happened to Kelly in the final four after Kelly had beaten Noa. Skyla stopped Ben’s rampage too. Easily.

On to Y-14, the main attraction being the prospect of a match-up between Skyla and her club-mate Margaret McDonald, with whom she’d shared the podium in Dallas. Sweet young things with swords. John Marsh, Joshua’s older brother, and built like a welter weight, won all his pool bouts, smashing through even Skyla’s parries. Alabama’s Xiang Hang won all his, as did Margaret hers. All four made it to the final four, Skyla was the only Y-12 to get that far. John was paired with Margaret, a classic battle of athleticism, strength and age (which for teen-agers is reckoned like dog years) against technique and experience. It was close, Margaret won 15-13. I think conditioning played a role in how things turned out. This was Skyla’s second event of the day and Xiang’s first, plus Ari Allen (Noa’s older brother) had given Skyla a hard time in the top eight (12-15), so, even though Xiang had to work even harder to get past Nellya’s Daniel Wolfson (15-14), the willowy 12 year old Skyla was probably pretty tuckered by the time she and 14 year old Xiang had it out; she went down 15-11. It didn’t look good for Margaret, but this was her first event and Xiang only had a year on her, so she prevailed 15-10.

41 fencers competed in the open. I was surprised me by how well the University of Florida Fencing Club did, two medalists spoiled Nellya’s sweep, and four of the eight top places. None of the unrated fencers got by any of the rated ones, and none of the Y-14 kids made it to top 16. Hang got is revenge on Margaret in the pools, but got taken out in the round of 32 by Carolina’s Stephen Flemings, and Margaret went down to club-mate James Flowers. Likewise Ari Allen went down to UFFC’s Ben Blaweiss, and Daniel Wolfson to UFFC’s 4th seed Kyle Lokuta . This was another level of the game.

The favorite, of course, was David Douville. Seeding out of pools revealed right away that this was not to be a Nellya romp. David seeded first, but UFFC’s Omari Tate seeded 2nd. Allen seeded 3rd, but Kyle Lokuta seeded 4th and his teammate Julian Andrews seeded 5th, while South Carolina’s Brian Fry seeded 6th, UFFC’s Diego Garcia seeded 7th, and Nellya’s Jesse Grainger seeded 8th. Only 3 Nellya fencers in the top 8!

Jesse, who’s been in Spain all summer not fencing, took out his sister Courtney to get to final 8 (so much for brotherly love), but got stopped short of the final 4 by David. David’s brother Cooper (Michael on the dotted line) got his mojo working upsetting both Brian Fry and Allen to make it to the final.

David took out his club mates while Blauweiss took out his. They met in the semi, and David went on to slay his brother.

Carlos Balhana made it to NGFC’s Touché Turkey Fest, while I slept off the tryptophan, and volunteered to report on that event (way to go Earl!)

NGFC’s Touché Turkey Fest

“I recruited brother-in-arms and fellow Nellyan Robert Nacu to help me officiate at the NGFC Touché Turkey Fest’s E & Under and Veteran Foil events this last Saturday. Gary DiMaggio, an optimist at heart, defied all skepticism of his scheduling sense by hosting a tournament over Thanksgiving weekend yet gathering 40 fencers in total, including two Iron Men (Pittsburgh’s John Schmidt and NGFC’s Edgar Bechtle) and our resident Iron Woman (the one and only Ellen O’Leary) who fenced both weapons. I will restrict my commentary to foil, as I had no time to watch épée even in between directing bouts, save to say that Schmidt and Bechtle disregarded exhaustion like it was bad advice

In the E & Under event, fencers in my pool experienced all sorts of technical malfunctions - from your run-of-the-mill broken body cords to the more exotic non-conducting lames. NGFC’s Craig Shaffren started dominating early on, winning all of his bouts with a +14 indicator and earning first seed ahead of NGFC’s Kyle Spoerke and ACN’s Max Cuchet, despite being an epeeist by training and having some initial difficulties with that whole covering-target-and-right-of-way thingamajig. In the quarterfinals, while running back and forth between strips, #5 Schmidt managed to pull a 15-13 upset out of his sleeve (along with a double set of body cords) over #4 Liam Kopel to enter the semis. Once eliminated by Shaffren in the round of four, Schmidt darted back over to épée, eventually splitting bronze in both events. Cuchet and Shaffren faced off in the final with Shaffren pulling ahead in the beginning. Cuchet recovered with sweeping counter-six coupés and won the bout after parrying Shaffren’s final fleche.

Soon thereafter, the veterans convened, seven in all. There were some new faces on the strip, including NGFC’s Eric Wilson and Catherine Radle. The dark horse contender, however, was none other than Edgar Bechtle, who last fenced in his native Germany more than 10 years ago and showed up wearing FC Bayern Munchen colors. Rotating between Veteran Épée and Veteran Foil, he quickly made an impact on the Georgia division – by inadvertently colliding with AFC’s Earl Shapiro and Ellen O’Leary. O’Leary got back up on her feet, however, both physically and proverbially, to advance to the semi-finals after beating Wilson in a close 10-9. Shapiro ran into some initial trouble against NGFC’s Steve Nichols, who offered a few counterattacks and attacks-in-preparation. In the semi-final rematch, Shapiro learned from his errors in time to earn a 10-9 victory. The final set Shapiro and Bechtle, who was “fresh” from his Veteran Épée win just 10 minutes earlier. After Bechtle broke two foil blades during a span of two minutes while attacking, Shapiro quickly realized that he needed to bring the fight to his opponent. Shapiro’s low-line parries and change in tempo got him caught up to “la belle”. Without any exaggeration, the last touch was truly electrifying. Bechtle pushed a redoublement, which Shapiro strongly parried and, as the blades clashed in the eight line, sparks flew – a sight corroborated by numerous spectators. The bout was over at 10-9 with Shapiro the victor.

It is nice to see the Veteran group flourish in Georgia and Mr. Bechtle will be a welcome addition. It was equally nice to see father-and-daughter duo James “Sam” Cook and Erin Cook at the tournament, along with Nellya defector Catherine Thomas. I want to thank Gary for the great hospitality, as always. I also want to thank Robert Nacu for his help refereeing. I hope that all of you had a great Thanksgiving and look forward to seeing you soon.
- Carlos”

Coming up this week-end is the Augusta Fencing Club’s December Demolition Derby; Epee (including a team event) on Saturday, Foil and Saber Sunday. ACN’s Valeria Makeeva is making her annual sortie. See you there.