St. John's University Athletics
The Rocky Road--Will it lead to Gold?
3/10/2005 12:00:00 AM | Fencing
March 10, 2005
The Rocky Road--Will it lead to Gold?
The St John's fencing team has just arrived back from Regionals held at Yale University, which ended in an exciting and surprising way.
It is the first time in our coach's (Yury Gelman) memory that St. Johns was able to qualify a full team (12 members) for NCAA Championships.
Our season did not start with such high expectations.
We were shy three experienced fencers, but right before the first meet in November, junior Kasia Wieronski had a change of heart and rejoined as the second to the women's saber team.
The spring semester brought with it a much needed woman epeeist in Joanna Guy. With this addition to our squad things began to look up--that is until the unexpected blizzard forced us to cancel our biggest meet of the year.
Now we questioned whether or not everyone would have enough bouts on their records to make it to Regionals.
Special concern surrounded Joanna since she had missed the first meet as well.
With a little finagling, we managed to send 15 men and women to Yale with the chance to go on to NCAA Championships.
So who was the third fencer who came through unexpectedly?
First-year member of the team, Alan Cadet, impressed us all with his strong performance at Regionals. Perhaps the most shocking moment was when he beat our own Sergey Isayenko, who went on to place first in the men's saber final round. Arpad Horvath, a senior and two-time NCCA Champion, also won in the men's epee competition.
Out of all the teams in the country we were the only school able to qualify 12 fencers; however our road is far from paved in gold.
Our rival schools may have only qualified 10, but they are all strong competitors. These Championships next week will be nothing less than brutal. The 23 bouts each member must fence are short and intense. They can last anywhere from thirty seconds to three minutes, and end when an opponent earns five points. With this quick format anything can happen. A world champion can lose to a walk-on fencer; it tends to come down to who can handle the pressure of the moment, and who is willing to take more risks.
The last few seasons St John's has tended to be the underdog school, managing against the odds, to place each year among the top four teams in the country.
Qualifying 12 was a major feat, but I feel that we are still the underdog school.
We're underestimated by the other top-finishing teams, and if we go to Houston with the same feeling of having nothing to lose, who knows what is possible.
With a lot of heart, sweat, brains, and luck, perhaps this could be our year.
NCAA Champion should not be our team's expectation, but it is definitely our goal.
We know that the students of St. John's will be unable to cheer us on at Rice University, but we would happily welcome all of your support as we try to bring prestige to our school--we are proud to represent the Red Storm and all who care as we do about the continuing legacy of sportsmanship here at St. John's.