Senior epée Antoine Mannes won the individual epée category at the MACFA Championships on Sunday. (Photo by Rick Smith for GoLeopards)
The men’s fencing team took on the Mid-Atlantic Collegiate Fencing Association Championships at Drew University on Sunday. Out of 13 teams, the foil squad finished fourth, the sabre team placed fifth and the epée squad earned sixth.
In addition to the team meets, the Leopards succeeded individually, with fencers from all three squads earning spots in the 16-player brackets. For the epée squad, senior epée Mannes brought home gold for the Maroon and White.
“I’m really happy about it, especially since for the past four years, it hasn’t been an event that I did particularly good at,” Mannes said, adding that “something just clicked” on Sunday.
Senior foil Benito Hergert led the way for the foil squad with a third-place finish after knocking out teammate senior foil Amir Whitehead in the first round. Hergert said that although it was less stressful to compete against a teammate, it was also “upsetting.”
“We work so hard together,” Hergert said. “It’s no fun to have to eliminate your own guy.”
Freshman sabre Nikita Kogan had the strongest sabre performance, finishing in fifth.
“I think it was a very good tournament,” Kogan said. “Our coach always talks about how the team is so much better now than it was five years ago, that we went from like one of the worst teams in the competition to one of the best ones now.”
Kogan noted that the meet was “fast-paced” due to the minimal breaks between bouts.
“It kind of got tiring closer to the end, but I like the format more than the normal tournament,” Kogan said.
In addition to the lessened break time, the MACFA Championships utilize a different scoring system than the rest of in-season play. Compared to other meets, the indicator, the number of points taken and given, counted, according to Mannes.
“Whereas for the whole season, a win is a win, the score doesn’t matter,” he said.
Senior foil Benito Hergert reiterated Mannes’ point.
“You kind of just like make sure you keep your energy high,” Hergert said. “Keep going into each match with a killer mindset and ready to win each one because every single bout matters. Every single point matters.”
The men’s team will return to action for NCAA regionals this Saturday, which will take place again at Drew. Nine out of the 11 men and seven of the eight women qualified.
Mannes noted that regions are a “whole ‘nother level,” and would see the Leopards take on some “much harder teams.”
“We’ve done everything we can physically throughout the whole season, but now we just have to sharpen ourselves and rally ourselves one last time, compete at the strongest we can,” Hergert said. “It’s all a mental game.”
Disclaimer: News Editor Makenna McCall ’27 is a member of the fencing team. She did not contribute writing or reporting.