Men and women's fencing split matches

The men and women's fencing teams split their first team matches of the season against Stevens Institute of Technology and Fairleigh Dickinson University, respectively, at the Palladium Athletic Facility Thursday.

The men's "B" squad defeated Stevens Institute of Technology by a combined score of 18-9, while the "A" team lost 14-13. The women's "B" squad rode a 9-0 shutout by its foil squad to a 17-10 combined victory over Farleigh Dickinson University, while the "A" team fell 15-12.

The stars of the men's "A" team were senior sabre fencer Sam Roukas and freshman foil fencer Phil Jamesson. They won all three of their bouts. The foil fencers on the women's "A" team excelled, as junior Amanda Rysling, sophomore Rebecca Baird-Remba and junior Sophie Ciaravino won all three of their bouts for the sweep. Baird-Remba and Ciaravino won their three bouts for the Violets' "B" team as well, and were the only fencers on either "B" team to sweep their matches.

The men's "B" squad's success hinged on their ability to win late matches. All nine NYU fencers won their last matches of the meet, allowing NYU to win their matches despite slow starts.

"They came out hard," senior team captain and epee fencer Andrew Stanco said. "Stevens is always a great team. We came out cold and weren't moving well to start."

Both teams were anxious coming into their first team meet of the season, despite participating on individual levels at the Temple University Open last weekend. They were also thrown off by a change in venue, as the meet was moved from Coles to the Palladium Athletic Facility due to the women's volleyball NCAA tournament. Some of the epee matches were moved to an auxiliary gym, away from the main gym, in order to complete the meet.

"We're usually together for our meets, but we got separated at this one, and it threw us off a bit," Stanco said. "[Coaches Kornel Udvarhelyi and Lauren Willock] did a good job of pumping us up and motivating us."

The men and women's fencing teams will be back in action this Friday when they head uptown to take on Columbia University's JV and varsity teams. The JV matches will start at 6 p.m., and varsity will start at 7 p.m.

Justin Izzo is sports editor.