First week of high school fencing practice is over. 17 came to the "call out" meeting, but it looks like about 10 of them have actually joined the team. Its fairly common for us to have a straggler or two join up later.
My SABER squad is growing, with 5 new members and 5 returning members we are up to 10 this year. I'd like more, but the team is very young so I'll gladly deal with 10.
Our FOIL squad, if my count is correct (and I don't coach them so I don't pay that much attention exept in full team meetings, etc) looks to have 12 fencers. I think FOIL may be in trouble next year, especially the girl's squad, they have 3 seniors on the team, not sure how many of the newbies on the foil squad are girls, but 3 seniors this year is not good news for next year.
I have 2 new boys added to my Saber squad, one is going to be very good, the other will become the reason I need to join AA before the end of the season. Total of 5, 3 returning + 2 newbies. 1 is a Senior, so I should start with 4 next year.
3 new girls on the Saber squad, I know one is an athlete, don't know the background of the other 2. All 3 girls seem to listen to instruction very well and all are taking it seriously, so I have hopes ... but I'll make early bets that 2 of those 3 girls will become pretty good. Total of 5, 2 returning + 3 newbies. None are seniors so I should have all of them back next year.
Overall we have the youngest and smallest team in our high school conference. Some of our competitors have 2 or 3 teams (club team/recreational fencing, home/JV team and travel/competition team). We have to field "squads of 4" in our conference, and to remain a team we have to field a minimum of 3 squads. We make our new fencers fence in varsity events so we qualify, this allows us to field 4 full teams (boys Saber, girls Saber, boys Foil & girls Foil). Of the 10 kids I have on boys/girls Saber, I only have 1 girl and 2 boys who are technically "varsity" in our conference rules but the rules ALSO allow ALL my students to fence in varsity only events. Sort of convoluted, but I think they are written to protect the Junior Varsity fencers from having real Varsity fencers competing in JV events.
My SABER squad is growing, with 5 new members and 5 returning members we are up to 10 this year. I'd like more, but the team is very young so I'll gladly deal with 10.
Our FOIL squad, if my count is correct (and I don't coach them so I don't pay that much attention exept in full team meetings, etc) looks to have 12 fencers. I think FOIL may be in trouble next year, especially the girl's squad, they have 3 seniors on the team, not sure how many of the newbies on the foil squad are girls, but 3 seniors this year is not good news for next year.
I have 2 new boys added to my Saber squad, one is going to be very good, the other will become the reason I need to join AA before the end of the season. Total of 5, 3 returning + 2 newbies. 1 is a Senior, so I should start with 4 next year.
3 new girls on the Saber squad, I know one is an athlete, don't know the background of the other 2. All 3 girls seem to listen to instruction very well and all are taking it seriously, so I have hopes ... but I'll make early bets that 2 of those 3 girls will become pretty good. Total of 5, 2 returning + 3 newbies. None are seniors so I should have all of them back next year.
Overall we have the youngest and smallest team in our high school conference. Some of our competitors have 2 or 3 teams (club team/recreational fencing, home/JV team and travel/competition team). We have to field "squads of 4" in our conference, and to remain a team we have to field a minimum of 3 squads. We make our new fencers fence in varsity events so we qualify, this allows us to field 4 full teams (boys Saber, girls Saber, boys Foil & girls Foil). Of the 10 kids I have on boys/girls Saber, I only have 1 girl and 2 boys who are technically "varsity" in our conference rules but the rules ALSO allow ALL my students to fence in varsity only events. Sort of convoluted, but I think they are written to protect the Junior Varsity fencers from having real Varsity fencers competing in JV events.