The Épée is here to play
January’s North American Cup (NAC) was held in Kansas City, and, after three days of competition featuring nine Northwestern fencers, Amanda Pirkowski walked away with a silver medal. None of the remaining eight cracked the top 32 in their respective weapons. While some of these fencers outperformed results from prior NAC competitions, others took some major steps back from prior performances.
The first day of competition featured the Division I Women’s Foil, where only one NU athlete, New Jersey junior Samantha Serban, elected to compete. Despite strong performances across her first two seasons with Northwestern, Serban struggled out of the gate in Kansas City, losing five of her six duels in pool play. With 108 fencers eventually qualifying for the single-elimination tableau stage of the event, Serban’s record came short, finishing in 118th.
The Division I Women’s Saber was full of hopes for the ‘Cats, with Nisha Hild coming off of a bronze medal performance in the Junior Women’s Saber at November’s NAC. After a 4-2 performance in pool play, the Massachusetts first-year received a bye before taking down Grace Ker to move to the Round of 64, where she fell to Natalie Tsui, the same fencer who eliminated Alex Chen in November.
Alex Chen did wind up with the best finish of the NU sabers this time around, however, ending in 40th, just four spots above Hild. After one of her opponents failed to appear in pool play, Chen coasted to a 4-1 record, with her one loss being a narrow D4 dual with Alexia Anthony. After a similar path to Hild, with a bye and a win in tableau play, Chen fell in the Round of 64.
Among NU’s other sabers, Adele Bois led the ‘Cats after pool play with an impressive 5-1 record before an upset loss to Yining Wang ended her run prematurely in the second round. After that upset, Yining Wang would go on to lose to the eventual champion, Team USA’s Magda Skarbonkiewicz.
Northwestern’s remaining four sabers also suffered early exits, with first-year Kira Erikson and junior Megumi Oishi falling in the second round and senior Kailing Sathyanath and sophomore Amy Lu falling in the first round. All did make it past pool play to qualify for the single-elimination tableau round, showing consistency among a large squad of Wildcats in the saber.
With just one competition left to make a statement for Zach Moss and company, the pressure was on Graduate Student and Notre Dame Transfer Amanda Pirkowski, and, boy, did she deliver. It wasn’t sunshine and rainbows from the start, however, with Pirkowski dropping two of her first three duels in pool play. She finished out pool play at 3-3 with a +1 indicator, making her the 72nd seed. From here, she went on a tear. With five consecutive upsets based on tableau seeding, Pirkowski dominated, with no opponent landing more than 11 points against her. After a narrow 15-14 victory in the semi-finals, she wound up falling to Catherine Nixon in the finals.
While NAC competitions are optional for Northwestern fencers, the schedule of games counting toward NU’s overall record pick up again soon, with the team traveling to Medford, MA on January 12 to compete at the Tufts Invitational.