Nisha Hild has that dog in her.
Six different Northwestern fencers entered into the North American Cup in Louisville, KY across three events: Junior Women’s foil, sabre, and épée. Coming off of placements as high as fifth and as low as 166th in these categories last time out in Atlantic City, the expectations were varied for Northwestern coming into this competition. They did have fewer overall competitors, with no Division I competitions this time around, and a decrease from eight to six in the number of overall Junior competitors.
The most notable result from Louisville was Nisha Hild’s medal in the sabre division, tying for third place overall. It was a rocky run at first, however, for first-year out of Holliston, MA. She suffered a few close losses in pool play, finishing 4-2, but had the highest indicator at +9 thanks to a highly competitive pool around her (think strength of schedule). This had her seeded at 58th with a round-one bye going into the Tableau. After rattling off five straight wins, however, she found herself in the semi-finals, where she fell 15-11 to the eventual champion, Capitol Fencing Academy’s Sophie Liu.
She was not the only Wildcat competing in the Sabre event either, as Natalie Shearer and Alex Chen were also in attendance. Shearer ended with a 20th-place finish, a small step down from her 17th-place performance in Atlantic City. She dominated Pool #18 play with a 6-0 record and a +19 indicator. As the 8-seed, she remained undefeated all the way through the Tableau until she reached her round of 32 matchup with Xuanyi Zhang, where she was subject to the same fate as her teammate: a 15-11 loss. Zhang wound up being the other Sabre tied with Hild in third place.
Alex Chen had a rougher competition this time around, finishing in 120th after a 74th-place result in Atlantic City. The sophomore, who is originally from Beijing but competes in Canada, went 2-4 in her pool, but with a relatively average -2 indicator. While Chen was able to secure a 15-8 victory to open her tournament run, she fell to eventual quarterfinalist Natalie Tsui a round later.
The final competition to close was the Junior Women’s épée, which featured sophomores Emma Ning and Ava Wade-Currie. Having both been unable to break into the Round of 64 in Atlantic City, they both certainly had some unfinished business going into Louisville. However, both suffered the same fate, falling in the Round of 128 once again.
Ning came through pool play with an average performance, signified by her indicator of exactly 0. She made it through the first round with an upset as the #148 seed but fell to quarterfinalist Natasha Lee directly after by a score of 15-12.
Wade-Currie was looking to make a deep run early, as she won her first four matches in pool play. However, as the competition grew longer, it also grew tougher, as Wade-Currie took back-to-back losses to finish pool play. Despite a round-one bye in the Tableau, she could not recapture her prior magic, being upset by 70-seeded Indra Phukan and finishing in 78th overall.
The cup had four overall days of competition, and while the aforementioned Sabre and Épée groups competed Monday, the Junior Women’s Foil took place Friday, with New Jersey first-year Brianna Ho as Northwestern’s sole competitor. She finished 50th out of 205 total competitors, notching a +11 indicator and a 4-2 record in her pool. This gave her a round one bye, and, after a 15-7 clobbering of Addison Ho in the following round, she fell to 7-seed Bonnie Davis in the Round of 64.
With the junior categories limited to those 20 and under in age from North America, this meant that the weight would primarily be on local first-years and sophomores for the Cats. This competition is also not incorporated into the overall record or tournament implications for Northwestern as the season progresses. As a more individually focused competition, the Louisville NAC served as yet another early season opportunity for Wildcat underclassmen to get their sea legs before the demanding year ahead.
With respectable finishes again this weekend, ‘Cats fans hope that this can allow for increased confidence in their younger fencers as the season moves forward, and they face competitors with more collegiate experience.
Northwestern will be in Philadelphia next weekend for the Elite Invitational at the University of Pennsylvania, the team’s last competition of the calendar year.