It was not a good day for our team yesterday.
We had 2 rated fencers who entered the tournament (my daughter and her friend Laura) and in the luck of the draw, they fenced each other in the first round of the elimination round (which determines the medals). Laura beat Melen (just barely) in what was the most watched match of the entire day.
These two girls were thought to be contenders for the top spots on the finalists platform. Going into the event I had more humble thoughts and figured both should end up in the top 5. Neither did!
The girls were in a virtual tie going into eliminations. So first elimination round was going to knock one of them out of the tournament standings completely. Laura took the lead from the start. By the time they got to 5 Melen had tied it up and taken the lead. At ten they were tied again and trading touches one for one. Melen is often predictable, she used the same attack 2 times in a row, Laura guessed that she would try that and scored the final winning touch. The crowd around these girls in that match was the biggest I saw at the event and included many of the saber coaches from opposing teams as these 2 girls had beaten probably every other girl in the event at one time or another during the season.
They have never had to fence each other so early on in any of the other matches during the elimination phase. The last time that happened they took 1st and 2nd places in the tournament. Usually the tournaments have 2 pools of eliminations running concurrently (as this one did) and the girls end up in different pools (not this time). So as a team, when we saw this, we immediately knew our chances of taking home multiple medals were dashed.
Laura lost in a surprise defeat later on but still was awarded a medal for 8th place.
On a funny note, one of the boy saber fencers from an opposing school, who I've known from the club fencing circuit, was reading the match-ups for the girls elimination round. I was there at that time reviewing the match-ups for some of our other fencers. He looked over to me, put his finger on the match-up of Melen and Laura and said "Is that who I think it is? They are fencing each other!" I said yes. He replied "Nothing good can come from that, I need to be there!"
We have more tournaments the girls will be in, all are varsity level. They have competed, and done very well in varsity tournaments too. So the season continues for a few more events.
We had 2 rated fencers who entered the tournament (my daughter and her friend Laura) and in the luck of the draw, they fenced each other in the first round of the elimination round (which determines the medals). Laura beat Melen (just barely) in what was the most watched match of the entire day.
These two girls were thought to be contenders for the top spots on the finalists platform. Going into the event I had more humble thoughts and figured both should end up in the top 5. Neither did!
The girls were in a virtual tie going into eliminations. So first elimination round was going to knock one of them out of the tournament standings completely. Laura took the lead from the start. By the time they got to 5 Melen had tied it up and taken the lead. At ten they were tied again and trading touches one for one. Melen is often predictable, she used the same attack 2 times in a row, Laura guessed that she would try that and scored the final winning touch. The crowd around these girls in that match was the biggest I saw at the event and included many of the saber coaches from opposing teams as these 2 girls had beaten probably every other girl in the event at one time or another during the season.
They have never had to fence each other so early on in any of the other matches during the elimination phase. The last time that happened they took 1st and 2nd places in the tournament. Usually the tournaments have 2 pools of eliminations running concurrently (as this one did) and the girls end up in different pools (not this time). So as a team, when we saw this, we immediately knew our chances of taking home multiple medals were dashed.
Laura lost in a surprise defeat later on but still was awarded a medal for 8th place.
On a funny note, one of the boy saber fencers from an opposing school, who I've known from the club fencing circuit, was reading the match-ups for the girls elimination round. I was there at that time reviewing the match-ups for some of our other fencers. He looked over to me, put his finger on the match-up of Melen and Laura and said "Is that who I think it is? They are fencing each other!" I said yes. He replied "Nothing good can come from that, I need to be there!"
We have more tournaments the girls will be in, all are varsity level. They have competed, and done very well in varsity tournaments too. So the season continues for a few more events.