Division III at Bayou City
By Denes Marton

Congratulation to our medallists.

            Hello, I would like to share the experience that my teammates and I had at the Division III tournament at Bayou City Fencing Academy fencing foil on January 13, 2007. A Div III means that any fencer rated a D or under can compete in it. Any one who was born in 1993 or earlier can and is a D and under can participate.

            In the pools, I started slowly, but did great. The first bout I won 5-3, and the next bout I did better, I won 5-2. The most memorable pool bout would have to be when I fenced Karalina Collins, a left-handed fencer who moved quickly. I managed to win, by doing a parry 6, then riposting. I remember couldn’t rush the bout, and I also remember that I had to do a feint disengage to get points on her when I decided to go on the offense. In that bout, I realized that I had to be more confident when attacking. In the end, I won all my pool bouts, and was seeded second. Sarah Followill was seeded 3^rd, Gabriel Acuna was seeded 5^th and Aldo Precciozzi was seeded 7^th.  Gabriel managed to get 1^st  in his pools, while Aldo and Sarah managed to get 2^nd.

            When the D.Es(Direct Eliminations) began, we all passed the 1^st round. We were all in the top 16 now. I had to fence Thomas Cohen, who was seeded 15^th, to advance the next round. I beat him by doing simple actions, such as beat attacks or beat disengage. Gabriel was up against Chris LaFargue, who was seeded 12, and Gabriel won in an    impressive bout. Aldo had to fence Damien Bernstein, who was fencing both foil and sabre, Aldo won, using counterattacks to his advantage. Finally, Sarah unfortunately lost to Anna Tumlinson, who was a left handed fencer and was excellent at defending. Now Aldo, Gabriel and I were in the Top 8, and the winning would be much harder.

            Unfortunately, Aldo and I had to fence this time. The bout was 4 to 1, and I began to lead until I was at 14. Amazingly, Aldo pulled a huge comeback, but time ran out, leaving the score at 14-12. Gabriel had to fence Nicholas Trant, a tricky fencer. I’m not sure what happened, as I was fencing, but Gabriel lost. Another bout I noticed was Karlina Collins against Robert Wooley. Robert had beaten Sarah in the pools, and had seeded 1^st overall. Karalina was good, she moved very well, but she couldn’t beat Robert. So Robert advanced as well.

            There were 4 left, Anna Tumlinson, Nicholas Trant, Robert Wooley, and me. I had to fence Anna Tumlinson, the girl who knocked Sarah out. Anna was a good defender, so Coach Marton advised me once I was in the lead, I should defend, because if she wanted to win she would have to attack. I did just that, when it was 4 to 3, I moved her around, but never attacked. I was putting pressure on her, as the time ticked away. I never lost my lead, for every time she scored a touch, I would get two. In the end, it was 15 to 10, with less than 10 seconds remaining. Robert won against Trant, but that is all I don’t know what happened.

            Now, we were at the finals. Robert and I would duke it for 1^st. The bout went slow; we moved back and forth, he managed to get the first touch. Every time I would score a touch, everyone would cheer for me, and that encouraged me. I don’t remember what happened during the 1^st and 2^nd period, but I do remember after 3 minutes it was 2-2 then after another 3 it was 4-4. This was going by slowly, very slowly. During the final-encounter, it was 5-5. We moved back, and forth, in a tempo. When I felt the time was right, I lunged, breaking the tempo, and it was too unexpected for him to do anything. 6-5. He knew he had to get a touch, and fast. He had to attack me, so he came a bit rushed, allowing me to parry riposte, giving me another point. It was now 7-5, and time ran out. I had won, and received my D rating. I was proud, and everyone was excited. We did well, I got 1^st, Gabriel got 5^th, Aldo 7^th and Sarah 9^th.

            Now, it was time for the teams. Our team was Sarah, Aldo, Gabriel and I, we were seeded 1^st, based on our results for the individual event.  We got a bye, putting us in top 4 automatically out of 6 teams. After it was decided who we were going to fence, it turned out to be That One Group. The team consisted of Anthony Tierney, Steven Villarreal, Leonardo Barragan, and Cassandra Verret. In the end, the score was 45-16. Simple actions and patience is what we used to beat them.

            The next bout was against the Graces, consisting of Michelle Ferrel, Hannah Jordan, Anna Tumlinson, and Alexandra Rose. We started with a strong lead, and Sarah got revenge on Anna by getting 5 touches with her only getting 1! With a lead of about 15 points, Anna comes back in, and gets their team about 12 points, but time ran out. After that, Gabriel did an outstanding job at beating Alexandra Rose without letting her score more than a single touch by doing a one-two. Then Sarah was up against Hannah Jordan, who Sarah managed to beat. Then I was in the final bout with Michelle Ferrell, I beat her by doing prise de fer’s ending it at 45-30.

            So we won the gold, and some chocolate, and were very pleased with ourselves. We came back with great results, thanks to all our coaches, friends, fellow fners, and parents!