Ramapo Fencers Fight Off Rally by Pingry, Win 16-11 (14-10)

Ramapo Fencers battled back a second round rally by Pingry to post another win on Wednesday. The Green Raiders advance to the Round of Eight in the State Team Championship following their 16-11 (14-10) defeat of the Bernards school.

Ramapo fencers jumped out to a 6-3 lead in the first round on the strength of 2-1 records in sabre, foil, and epee. However, they had a setback in the second round when Pingry turned the tables by going 2-1 in all three weapons to tie the score at 9-9. Before the beginning of the third round the team had a huddle where everyone refocused on the business at hand. The sabreists opened the round with a clean sweep, going 3-0. The foilists lost their first bout in the round but Tanner Frank overwhelmed his opponent with a 5-0 win to put the score at 13-10. B-strip foilist Dan Kim traded touches with his opponent until the score was even at 4-4. After a very long series of attacks by each fencer, all of which failed, Dan finally scored the 5th touch to clinch the meet at 14-10.

The sabre squad produced a 6-3 record which disappointed them given that their first place finish in the Cetrulo established them as the strongest sabre squad in NJ and given that they had just won gold in their District Championship in convincing fashion. They started off with a 2-1 record in the first round but suffered a reversal in the second round where they went 1-2, the first time this year that they have won less than two bouts in a round.  They huddled to disc  uss what was going wrong and came back in the third round to sweep all three of their bouts with scores of 5-1, 5-3, and 5-1. Alex Gorloff went 3-0, winning his bouts by big margins. Adam Carcione added two victories and Chris Muller contributed one victory to the squad’s 6-3 result.

The Ramapo epee squad went 5-4 as Pingry’s A-strip, Stephen Rienzi, defeated all three Ramapo epeeists by convincing margins. Rienzi is an outstanding epee fencer and demonstrated his skill tonight.  Starters Sam Judd, Scott Zellers, and Matt Martone each contributed one victory.  Subs replaced them in the third round when the meet was won. Subs Michael Daly and Adam Polevoy each won their bouts to bring the epee squad score to 5-4.

Ramapo foilists also went 5-4. Tanner Frank led the Squad in each round and produced two solid victories. B-strip fencer, Dan Kim, also produced two victories, including the clinching win in the second round. Eugene Won added the fifth victory to keep the squad on a par with the epeeists.

The team’s next meet is a regular season dual meet at home against Wayne Hills, usually a very difficult opponent, on Monday, Feb. 11.

The second round of the State Team Championship is next Wednesday, at Home. Unless we advise you of a change the start time will be 4:30PM. Our opponent will be Ridge, seeded number 6, compared to our number 3 seed.

Please come and support the team. It makes a difference!

Ramapo’s prior meets against: Nyack 28-1 (14-1), Fair Lawn 23-4 (14-2), Passaic Valley 16-11 (14-7), Bernards 15-12 (14-12), Columbia 11-16 (8-14), Don Bosco 13-14 (12-14), Pompton Lakes 17-10 (14-5), Northern Highlands 19-8 (14-4), Indian Hills 15-12 (14-5), Bergen Tech 19-8 (14-3), Pingry 16-11 (14-10)

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