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Summer National Miami 2007 Congratulations to all our 45 athletes who represented Salle Mauro at summer nationals. Salle Mauro coaches proudly returned back from the 2007 Summer National Championships in Miami, Fl with Great Showing in all three weapons !!!!!!!!!! Congratulations to all our Medalists!!!
The club was well
represented with many other fencers turning in strong performances.
The work they’ve put in through the season showed in their
performances at Nationals and the bar
The coaches would like to thank the parents for the support they’ve given this past season. The effort and support you show inspires your children and directly affects their results. These medals wouldn’t be possible without you.
Persistence and Hard Work Begin to
Pay Of
2007 marked Sarah
Followill’s fourth Summer Nationals. It’s all starting to come At the Summer Nationals in Miami, Sarah was signed up to compete in four women’s foil events: Cadet, Youth 14, Div II and Div III. Her first event was Cadet. She did okay in pools coming out of them with a 3-3 record. Her pool was extremely hard having Marissa Gomez, Elizabeth Van Son and Kylei McGill not to mention two other left handed fencers. As one Mom put it, “I’m glad my daughter wasn’t in Sarah’s pool.” She won her first DE, but then had to come up against Mykayla Varadi to make the top 32. To Sarah’s credit she made Mykayla work extremely hard for 3 periods before losing 15-9. Sarah ended up 56th out of 103 competitors. Mykayla went on to finish 6th.
Sarah’s next event, Y14,
was a few days later. She did quite well in her pool coming
After a few more days rest,
Sarah returned to the venue to compete in Div II (a C and under
competition). Sarah had a D rating for most of the fencing year, and
had come close several times to getting her C rating. Now she was
determined to get it during this tournament. Sarah did great in her
pool, which had two C rated fencers, coming out with a 5-0 record with
a +18 indicator. This result seeded her 5th going into the
DEs. Before telling you about the bouts, I want to thank Rachel
El-Saleh for taking the time to watch and help Sarah during the whole
day’s event. Also, since Mauro had to leave early to catch a flight,
Coach Hassan from St. Louis coached her during the DEs. Her first
opponent was a young lady who presented a very small target. Sarah
fenced her wonderfully letting the other girl do all of the work yet
scoring touch after touch on her. Sarah won 15-7 to make the top 32.
Now if you know Sarah, then you know
that she likes to chat, a lot, during the tournaments. Well, when she
found out who her next opponent was to be she went up to her and told
her that they would be fencing next. The woman (seeded 28th),
asked Sarah how long she had been fencing, and Sarah told her that
this was her first year to be fencing in Div II because she was only
13. The opponent seemed concerned that Sarah was so young and advised
her to sit down and rest before their bout, assuming that she would
have no problem beating this young kid. By this time, Kristen George
from St. Louis had lost her DE and since she had been at the Salle
Mauro camp the past two summers, all of her supporters and family came
over to cheer for Sarah. And cheer they did. Sarah’s opponent
underestimated her – always a serious mistake! Sarah won 15-9 despite
her opponent doing a great deal of complaining to the director about
Sarah’s fencing style. Sarah’s confidence was then boosted with a
15-12 win to make the top 8 – mentally a big hurdle.
Now our tale comes to the sad part.
Sarah’s next opponent was Ms. Siu from Fencers Club. Undoubtedly the
director did not like the way Sarah was moving and gave her a red card
in the first period which ended with Sarah behind 2-5. The next
period ended with Sarah behind 6-8. In the final period, Sarah fenced
great and caught up and passed Ms. Siu such that the score was 13-11
with only about 30 seconds left. Ms. Siu scored another touch and with
10 seconds left, the score was 13-12 with Sarah ahead. Then in the
next few seconds with both fencers right next to each other, the
director gave Sarah another red card for “covering with her weapon
arm”. The crowd was definitely not pleased with this call. So the two
fencers went into priority where guess what happened. Another red
card was given to Sarah for “covering with her weapon arm” and thus
she lost. The folks from St. Louis let the Director know just what
they thought of his calls. In the end Sarah learned from this, and she
will be a better fencer for having experienced this type of loss.
Sarah ended up 6th out of 120 competitors, enough to get
her C rating. Sarah later that evening told me that the encouragement
and cheers that she received from the St. Louis folks was one of the
main reasons why she fenced as good as she did that day.
Women’s Foil Div III (a D
and under event) event was held on the final day of Nationals. Sarah
was seeded 18th going into pools. She seemed to be in a
good mood, and Coach Hassan was there helping her, but her heart just
wasn’t there. She moved as if she had legs of lead and could find no
way to put the tip of her foil on anyone’s lame. Aay carramba!! The
coach was baffled, and her dad was angry and puzzled. Sarah was
mentally elsewhere. She came out of pools with a record of 3-3 and an
indicator of 0. Not good for the 18th seed who had just
recently come in 6th in the Div II competition. After the
pools, Sarah was seeded 48th out of the 72 fencers, so that
advanced her to the DEs. During the wait for DEs, Coach Hassan and I
had a little chat with her about her motivation and lack of energy.
The deck was stacked against her now. Her first DE was against the
17th seed. We don’t know what happened, whether it was the
talks or Sarah just making up her mind to fence like we know she can,
but she came out with a vengeance, winning 15-11 in the first period
to make the top 32. She then had to fence the 49th seed,
who had just beaten the 16th seed. What a great tournament and what a great effort by Sarah. She came away with two national medals and much needed national points in Y14. She is currently ranked 25 in Y14 and beginning September 1 when the older girls move to the next age group, Sarah will be ranked 10th in the nation. We hope that she keeps up the hard work this coming year and does well at the NACs, JOs and the Summer Nationals again. Clearly this past Summer National event will be one that she remembers for a long time.
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Benjamin Parkins 6 Place U19 Men’s Foil,
Sarah
Followill
6th Place DivII Women's Foil
Thomas
Dudey.
Silver Medal, U10 Boy's Foil
Elizabeth
Donnenberg Bronze Medal, U17 Girl’s Epee 
Michael
El-Saleh. 
Colin Sutter. 
Benjamin
Nichols. 
has been raised for this coming year. Many of our fencers earned
points in their age groups as well as the group ahead. Thomas
Dudey finished the year atop the Y-10 Boy’s Foil, and Chris Ahn
and Elizabeth Donnenberg finished
third in the Y-12 Boy’s Saber and Y-14
Girl’s Epee point lists respectively. Allie Micek placed 4th
in Y-10 Girl’s Epee, and Ben Parkins placed 5th on
the Junior Men’s Foil. Elizabeth Donnenberg’s 6th
on the Cadet Women’s Epee list closed the top-8s for the club.
together. In her first year in of Youth 14 Women’s foil, she
surprised all of us by how well she did in the competitions leading up
to the Summer Nationals. She began the year being able to finally
fence in the Division II and III events, and she did well. Her NAC
Div II finishes were all in the top 32, her NAC Div III finishes were
18th and 12th, and her four Y14 finishes,
including the super RYC’s, were all in the top 16. As parents we
could see that all of the hard work that she and her coaches had put
into preparing her was beginning to show.
out with a record of 5-1. She won her first DE quite easily 15-1 to
make the top 64. After making the top 32, her next opponent was Eliza
Klyce who was fencing lights out that day. Sarah lost 15-12, and
Eliza went on to finish second in Y14. To Sarah’s credit, neither of
Eliza’s next two opponents scored as many touches on her as Sarah had
in their bout. Like we see so many times in the sport of fencing,
once Sarah lost to Eliza, she then became Eliza’s biggest fan and
cheered her on all the way to the final gold medal bout (fierce
competitors yet great friends). Sarah finished in 22nd
place out of 107 fencers. We were pleased with her performance but
Sarah was not. She had been hoping to make it at least into the top
16. 
After the first period Sarah was behind 6-10, and mid way through the
second period Sarah was behind 8-14 when all of sudden something
happened. Sarah found the secret to beating her opponent. Touch after
touch came. Sarah was excited. She screamed after each touch. The
other young lady was simply baffled as to what to do. In the end
Sarah won 15-14 and had the confidence of a winner. on the other
hand had lost a few more hairs on the top of my head (and there are
not too many left to lose). Her next opponent was the one who had
underestimated her in the Div II event and was ready for a rematch.
The opponent now knew who she was up against and there was no
underestimating Sarah this time. She asked for hand judges even
before the bout began. This backfired. Sarah’s second point was a
red card against the opponent, who wound up receiving two more red
cards for covering target. The result, Sarah won again 15-9 to reach
the top 8. Now, a predicament. Her next opponent was Kristen George
whose coach had been helping Sarah and whose family and friends had
been rooting for Sarah all through these past two events. Feeling
that it was not fair to Kristen, whose family had paid for Coach
Hassan to come to the tournament, we told him to coach Kristen and to
not talk with Sarah during this bout. For whatever reason, Kristen
did not fence up to
her
skill and Sarah was at the top of hers. Sarah went on to win 15-2 to
make the top 4. What’s great about fencing is that friends compete
but remain friends. The whole St. Louis group was there again for
Sarah when she went up against her next opponent, Taylor Black from
FIT in Dallas, yet another of Sarah’s good friends. The bout went
back and forth until in the third period with Sarah behind 13-14,
Taylor did a move that was so unexpected from everyone that it caught
Sarah unprepared and she lost 13-15. Disappointed that she lost; yes.
Hard feelings towards Taylor; no. Sarah came in third out of 93
fencers.
